First House

In First House, the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Burnt Sugar, Avni Doshi, turns a sudden marital rupture into a tense, inward-looking psychodrama. When a woman’s husband calmly announces he wants a divorce, her sense of self and safety fractures. Left in a hostile suburb with two young daughters, she tries to hold everyday life together while her mind keeps slipping back through the marriage, searching for the signs she ignored. As the summer drags on, domestic scenes blur with unsettling myths of headless women and vengeful goddesses, giving the novel a dark, hallucinatory edge. First House is a sharp, unsettling look at unhappy families, the violence that can live inside a home, and what it takes to remake yourself when the life you trusted collapses. Useful additional information Author: Avni Doshi