If Today Be Sweet

Tehmina Sethna, a middle-aged Parsi woman, lost her husband within the past year. She is now staying with her son, Sorab, at his suburban home in Ohio, where he lives with his American wife and their child. They want her to stay, and she has to decide between the familiar life she knows in India and a new one in America.

The Parsis were admitted to India nearly a thousand years ago on a promise to sweeten the lives of the people who took them in. Tehmina takes that old promise seriously. It shapes a second question that presses harder than the first: whether she will live in America as a stranger or as a citizen, someone connected to and involved in the life around her.

The answer is forced by two troubled young boys who live next door. Their situation draws Tehmina in. She can go on straddling two worlds, belonging to neither, or she can commit fully to her new life. She makes the choice alone.

This is a novel of family and community, and it looks at contemporary America with affection and some candor. It notes the sterility of suburban living and the shallow glitter of celebrity culture, and it also shows how generous people can be and how much they want to connect. Immigration, identity and hope run through it, along with the idea that cultures meeting can improve each other.