About the Book

The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

Author: Mira Jacob
Pages: 512
ISBN: 0812994787
Genre: Cultural, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Released: July 1, 2014

Rating:

Goodreads

Synopsis

Spanning India in the 70s to New Mexico in the 80s to Seattle in the 90s, The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing is a winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past.

When brain surgeon Thomas Eapen decides to cut short a visit to his mother's home in India in 1979, he sets into motion a series of events that will forever haunt him and his wife, Kamala; their intellectually precocious son, Akhil; and their watchful daughter, Amina. Now, twenty years later, in the heat of a New Mexican summer, Thomas has begun having bizarre conversations with his dead relatives and it's up to Amina-a photographer in the midst of her own career crisis-to figure out what is really going on. But getting to the truth is far harder than it seems. From Thomas's unwillingness to talk, to Kamala's Born Again convictions, to run-ins with a hospital staff that seems to know much more than they let on, Amina finds herself at the center of a mystery so thick with disasters that to make any headway at all, she has to unravel the family's painful past.


Buy the Book


Our Review

FTC Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from the author and/or publisher and wrote this review voluntarily. The opinions expressed are entirely my own and is in no way affiliated with the author or publisher.


At 500 pages, this book is not what you would call “a quick read”, and yet it doesn’t ramble either. In Mira Jacob’s debut novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, the story takes place in India, Albuquerque and Seattle, during the late 70s, early 80s and late 90’s.

This is a beautifully written story full of emotional ups and downs for an Indian family and their haunting past.

Shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, and Longlisted for the Brooklyn Literary Eagles Prize, Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is a touching tale that will stay with you long after you finish reading.