Evening Is the Whole Day

Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding first novel introduces us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as it slowly peels away its closely guarded secrets. When the family's rubber-plantation servant girl is dismissed for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha's life. In the space of several weeks her grandmother died under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, left for Columbia University, gone forever. Circling through years of family history to arrive at the moment of Uma's departure - stranding her worshipful younger sister in a family, and a country, slowly going to pieces - Evening is the Whole Day illuminates in heartbreaking detail one Indian immigrant family's layers of secrets and lies, while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself. Sweeping in scope, exuberantly lyrical, and masterfully constructed, Preeta Samarasan's debut is a mesmerising and vital achievement.