The Toss of a Lemon - Hardcover

"Viswanathan . . . achieves something that is in many way more nuanced than the broad brushstrokes of an epic: a meditation on fate's workings in a family dominated by the quiet rule of one woman." ?The Washington Post Book World

Sivakami was married at ten, widowed at eighteen, and left with two children. According to the dictates of her caste, her head is shaved and she puts on widow's whites. From dawn to dusk, she is not allowed to contaminate herself with human touch, not even to comfort her small children.

Sivakami dutifully follows custom, except for one defiant act: She moves back to her dead husband's house to raise her children. There, her servant Muchami becomes her public face. Their singular relationship holds three generations of the family together through the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, as India endures great social and political change. But as time passes, the family changes, too; Sivakami's son will question the strictures of the very beliefs that his mother has scrupulously upheld. Heartbreaking, exhilarating, and profoundly exotic, The Toss of a Lemon is above all an evocation of the tensions that change brings to every family. "Padma Viswanathan has real talent." ?New York Times Book Review

"[An] exquisite debut novel. . . . [E]lectrifying." ?Baltimore Sun  Padma Viswanathan is a fiction writer, playwright and journalist. Her writing awards include residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Banff Playwright's Colony, and first place in the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. She lives with the poet and translator Geoffrey Brock and their children  in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

PADMA VISWANATHAN is a fiction writer, playwright, and journalist. She was awarded first place in the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. She lives with the poet and translator Geoffrey Brock and their children in Fayetteville, Arkansas.