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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
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English
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BINDI

Paul Matthew Maisano

A richly imagined debut set against the backdrop of India, London, and Hollywood that tells the story of a young boy, suddenly orphaned, and the adults around him, each of whom is also looking for a home in the world

Kerala, 1993: Eight-year-old Birendra suddenly loses his mother, but he refuses to believe he's an orphan. He's certain that his mother's twin sister, the troubled but winning Nayana, will come for him all the way from West London. But when the letter informing Nayana of her sister's death goes missing, numerous lives are forever altered, and Birendra is set adrift.

Madeline, a Los Angeles native and interior designer to the stars, is floundering in her personal life. In the aftermath of a failed attempt to get pregnant, she flies to India where she finds herself face-to-face with Birendra. In a moment of sudden certainty, she decides she must adopt the boy in order to save them both.

As Nayana falls deeper into crisis at work and in her marriage in London, Birendra learns to make himself at home in Los Angeles, forging an especially close bond with Madeline's younger brother, Edward, who begins to worry that his sister may have met her match in motherhood. When he learns of his adopted nephew's family in London, Edward is faced with an impossible choice. If he can find Nayana and reunite her with her nephew, should he? Even if in doing so he would risk unwittingly setting the two women who love the boy most against each other?

Written in stirring prose, and infused with keen emotional insight, Bindi is about our search for family and for home, and an exploration of the ways that loss and longing can be converted into hope, connection, and love.

Paul Matthew Maisano obtained his MFA in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his B.A. from Columbia University in East Asian Languages and Cultures. His writing has received an honorary mention from Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers and the support of the Wall Creek, Wyoming Residency and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. He is currently the third-year McIntyre Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
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Book

Published 2018-08-01 by Little, Brown (US)

Comments

Paul Matthew Maisano is an extraordinary writer, and one we all should be hearing from right now, with his thoughtful and nuanced view of the global stage. His unique, compassionately drawn characters are ones you have not met before. He is a writer of the moment. Bindi is a book everyone should be reading. -- Karen Bender, author of Refund

Maisano's poignant debut...effectively captures the settings across the globe and creates a realistic and imperfect family, movingly demonstrating how a combination of chance, persistence, and love creates lasting ties.

Reading Paul Matthew Maisano's Bindi was a revelation. This is the prose I've been looking for—worldly and soulful, enduring, its surface beauty underwritten by adventure and excitement and a deep love of life. -- Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat and Other Stories

In this richly imagined and deeply moving novel, Paul Matthew Maisano tells the story of Bindi, a young Indian boy, suddenly orphaned, and the adults around him, each of whom, in different ways, is also looking for a home in the world. As the novel moves between Los Angeles, London, France and India, Maisano shows how loss and longing can be converted into hope, meaningful work and love. His beautiful prose, his immensely sympathetic characters and the wonderfully dramatic story he tells, make Bindi a novel in which many readers will find a home. -- Margot Livesey, author of Mercury