My Sweet Girl

DEBUT Paloma Evans has issues. She’s drinking heavily and believes she’s being haunted by the ghost from a Sri Lankan folk tale; plus, she’s just had a falling-out with her parents that can’t be repaired. On top of that, her new roommate Arun has learned her darkest secret and is blackmailing her. She returns home one day, having resolved to deal with Arun—only to find him dead at the kitchen table. When police arrive at the apartment, there’s no body and no sign that the young man (an undocumented immigrant) ever existed. Paloma has already fled. She seeks refuge at her parents’ empty house, where she spirals into an alcohol-fueled breakdown and is tormented by the ghosts of her past. The narrative switches between two timelines: in one, 12-year-old Paloma is living at an orphanage in her native Sri Lanka; in the other, the present-day Paloma (now 30 and living in San Francisco) makes desperate attempts to escape the past but only magnifies her misery.