Escaping her failing marriage, Grace Marisola has returned to Pondicherry from the United States to cremate her mother. Once there, she receives an inheritance she could not have expected-a property on the beaches of Madras-and discovers a sister she never knew she had: Lucia, who was born with Down Syndrome and has spent her life in a residential facility.
Grace sets up a new and precarious life with Lucia; the housekeeper, Mallika; drily witty Auntie Kavitha; and an ever- multiplying litter of puppies. But Grace's attempts to leave her old self behind and create a new family prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury and bewilderment of life with Lucia.
"Lovely, beguiling, [and] brilliant" (Gary Shteyngart), Small Days and Nights is a story of the ties that bind, the secrets we bury, and the sacrifices we make to forge lives that have meaning.