Set in 1970s Bombay, the novel explores art, ambition, gender roles and class with the same shimmering prose of Swamys first book, the story collectionA House Is a Body.San Francisco Chronicle

[A] sublime, boundary-pushing exploration of sexuality, creativity, and love.NPR

In this transfixing novel, a young womancomes of age in 1960s- and 1970s-eraBombay, a vanished world that is complex and indeliblyrendered. Vidyas childhood is marked bythe shattering absence and then the bewilderingreappearance of her mother and baby brother at thefamily home. Restless, observant, and longingfor connection with her brilliant and increasinglytroubled mother, Vidya navigates the stifling expectationsof her life with a vivid imagination untilone day she peeks into a classroom where girlsare learning kathak, a dazzling, centuries-olddance form that requires the utmost disciplineand focus. Her pursuit of artistic transcendencethrough kathak soon becomes the organizingprinciple of her life, even as she leaves home forcollege and falls in complicated love with her bestfriend. As the uncertain future looms, she mustultimately confront the tensions between romanticlove, her art, and the legacy of her own imperfectmother.

Lyrical and deeply sensual, with writing asmesmerizing as kathak itself, Shruti SwamysThe Archeris a bold portrait of a singular womancoming of age as an artistnavigating desire,duty, and the limits of the body. It is also an electrifyingand utterly immersive story about thetransformative power of art, and the possibilitiesthat love can open when were ready.