The Heart Is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai

Journalist Flock's intention to write about "the Indian love story"—"because it seemed more honest and vulnerable," especially when compared to her parents' multiple failed marriages—began in 2008 when she first lived in Mumbai. Although a spinal injury unexpectedly sent her back to the States, Flock returned in 2014 to finish the book—her first—she started about three couples she calls "romantics and rule breakers": celestially misaligned Veer and Maya, who live separate lives together; childless Shahzad and Sabeena, haunted for decades by infertility; and online-matched Ashok and Parvati, who marry as near-strangers and grow to love each other. While the majority of Sunil Malhotra's narration is expectedly straightforward reportage of what's on the page, Malhotra sprinkles the narrative with spot-on characterizations: a young woman's shy agreement to marriage, a blustering father-in-law, a fortune-telling sage, an understanding doctor, and a sniping stepmother-in-law, among many others.