High in the Himalayas sits a dilapidated mansion, home to three people, each dreaming of another time. The judge, broken by a world too messy for justice, is haunted by his past. His orphaned granddaughter has fallen in love with her handsome tutor, and the cook's heart is with his son, working far away in a New York restaurant. Meanwhile, around the house swirl the forces of revolution and change . . .

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India, in England, and the United States. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss.