OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Wondering if there's a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy's The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [ A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating ."--Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life
Megha Majumdar's electrifying new novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller A Burning is set in a near-future Kolkata, India in which two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other. A piercing and propulsive tour de force.
In a near-future Kolkata, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma's husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma's purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma's frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children's future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.
A masterful new work from one of the most exciting voices of her generation.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Majumdar (A Burning) spins a luminous story of a family facing climate catastrophe and food scarcity in near-future Kolkata. It revolves around a mother known only as Ma, who manages a shelter between caring for her aging father and two-year-old daughter, Mishti. The three of them have obtained highly coveted "climate visas" and are preparing to join Mishti's father in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he's spent the past six months working as a medical researcher. All is hopeful until the household is visited by a young thief named Boomba, who followed Ma home from the shelter suspecting (correctly) that she is siphoning food from her workplace. The plot thickens when Boomba makes off with the family's passports, causing further complications for all involved. Majumdar conjures a city at once deteriorating and resilient, where markets sell seaweed and synthetic fish, and the city's "remaining benevolent billionaire" lives on a heavily guarded man-made island in a widening river. As Ma and her family struggle to reclaim the passports, Majumdar unspools Boomba's backstory, crafting a complex antagonist who gradually gains the reader's sympathy. There's no clear-cut villain here, just people attempting to survive and protect their own. This proves once again that Majumdar is a master of the moral dilemma. Eric Simonoff, WME. (Oct.)
Kirkus Book Review
In near-future Kolkata, the fates of two families become disastrously intertwined. With gorgeous writing and the pacing of a thriller, Majumdar's second novel--afterA Burning (2020)--transports the reader to a world ravaged by drought, burning heat, and severe food scarcity. As the story begins, it's Day 1 of the week before Ma will take her 2-year-old daughter, Mishti, and her father, Dadu, to join her scientist husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on laboriously procured climate visas, which she regards as "treasure beyond her greatest hope." Ma just left her job managing a shelter, an organization supported by the single remaining local billionaire, whose food donations she has been lightly skimming to keep her family fed. A teenage resident of the shelter, Boomba, devises a desperate plan to follow Ma home and recapture some of the booty for resale on the street, as he's frantic to raise money to rescue his own parents and beloved younger sibling, languishing in dire straits outside the city. Among the items he grabs are Ma's purse, containing the three passports, setting in motion a series of escalating catastrophes, crimes, and ironies, each darker than the last, all of it concealed by both Ma and Boomba in their hopeful phone conversations with husband and parents, respectively. Fully inhabiting both characters over the ensuing seven days, Majumdar reveals her unsettling message: A guardian and a thief lives in each of us. Her evocation of the lost world that lives in the characters' memories makes the situation not just terrifying but almost criminally poignant, and the way she manages to connect all the storylines with a resolution that unfolds both globally and in one small living room is genius. This electrifying depiction of dignity and morality under siege reveals the horror hidden by the bland term "climate change." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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