Nayantara Roy's achingly powerful second novel, Sisters of a Halved Heart, maps the complicated emotional terrain between two half-sisters who try to mend their relationship in the wake of a cataclysmic betrayal.
Narrator Mira Guhathakurta, a poetry editor at a well-known literary magazine, has spent five years in London following a calamitous breakup. Returning to New York to rebuild her life, Mira settles tentatively into an apartment in Brooklyn, reconnecting with old friends and her father, gradually (and grudgingly) interacting with her sister, Joy. Younger by eight years, Joy is bold and sharp yet fragile, a corporate lawyer whose sense of self depends on her relationship with Mira and their father. As the sisters circle one another warily, bound together by their lifetime connection and their father's uncertain health, Roy examines the ways in which people hurt, question, support, reassure, and even abandon the ones they love most.
Roy (The Magnificent Ruins) unfolds the story of Mira and Joy's relationship: their blazing love for one another, tempered by the "language of small barbs" that peppers their constant jockeying for position. Their father is delighted to have both his girls back in his orbit but frustrated by their seeming inability to make peace. At the same time, Mira reflects on her relationship with Jack, the man who became the love of her life, and the ways their relationship sustained her until its sudden, catastrophic ending. Roy's characters achieve both a layered complexity and a certain "hard-won sweetness" to their love. With subtle grace and a fierce, deep compassion for her characters, Roy paints an unforgettable portrait of sisterhood and family. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams