A tender, powerful, and beautifully told story of displacement, Don't Let Him Know marks the arrival of a brave new voice in Indian literature.
In a boxy apartment building in an American university town, Romola Mitra, a young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades later, her son Amit finds the letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets sometimes, and a way of following their keepers.
Moving from adolescent rooftop games to adult encounters in gay bars, from hair salons in Calcutta to McDonald's drive-thrus in California, this is an unforgettable story about family, the struggle between having what we want and doing what we feel we must - and the sacrifices we make for those we love.
About the Author
Sandip Roy is Senior Editor at the popular news portal Firstpost.com, blogs for the Huffington Post and is an Associate Editor with New America Media. He has been a long-time commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, one of the most listened-to radio programmes in the US, and has a weekly radio postcard for public radio on KALW 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has contributed to various anthologies including New California Writing 2011, Story-wallah!, Contours of the Heart, Out! Stories from the New Queer India, Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India and The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. He currently lives in Kolkata.
Industry Reviews
This artful novel is a true delight. It dances across continents and through time * Daily Mail *
With a tender yet exacting gaze, Sandip Roy creates a mesmerizing tableau of family life in an era of transformation, migration, and upheaval * Tahmima Anam, author of A Golden Age *
A believable and wonderfully written story of secrets between the generations * The Times *
Sandip Roy's compelling characters strive to negotiate the distances between continents, generations and sexualities; through a dazzling mosaic of narrative snapshots Roy captures the arcs of entire lifetimes * Manil Suri *
Gripping and surprising ... Captures the heart of modern Indian life and is masterful at demonstrating the mystery behind all families * Stylist *
A story rich with the exhilaration of the future, and heavy with the tug of the past. I loved it * Neil Bartlett *
