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Habitations

A Novel

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Habitations

By: Sheila Sundar
Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
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About this listen

 A young academic moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more in this “delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor” (Ha Jin, National Book Award­–winning author of Waiting).

Vega Gopalan is adrift. Still reeling from the death of her sister years earlier, she leaves South India to attend graduate school at Columbia University. In New York, Vega straddles many different worlds, eventually moving in and out of a series of relationships that take her through the striving world of academia, the intellectual isolation of the immigrant suburbs, and, ultimately, the loneliness of single motherhood. But it is the birth of Vega’s daughter that forces the novel’s central question: What does it mean to make a home?

Written with dry humor and searing insight, Habitations is an “irresistible debut” (Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) about identity, immigration, expectation, desire, and love lost and found. But it is also a universal story of womanhood, and the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties: to family, to community, and to themselves.

A “sweeping, immersive, and utterly perfect” (Weike Wang, author of Chemistry) meditation on the many meanings of home and on the ways love and kinship can be found, even in the most unfamiliar of places, Habitations introduces Sheila Sundar as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction. Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction World Literature Witty

Critic reviews

"Priya Ayyar brings emotional depth to this novel about a young Indian American woman's coming of age and unexpected entry into motherhood. She captures Vega—a quiet, shy college student—at a time of raw vulnerability by gently voicing her hopes, fears, triumphs, and heartaches. In an understated style, Ayyar softly explores Vega's exploration of what transforms a house, a city, or even a country into a home. Ayyar invites listeners to inhabit the life of this young first-generation American, to walk in her shoes and feel her struggles and joys. Vega grapples with her companionable but passionless marriage, establishes her own goals, and embraces her surprise pregnancy. Ayyar's thoughtful performance draws listeners in as empathetic witnesses."
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Very slow, too much detail, not helped by dull narration. Well written in many ways, and I found the descriptions of the Indian-American experience very interesting, but even with just two hours to go I found I couldn’t go on.

Very long-drawn-out

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