What You Call Winter

With this collection of beautifully written interconnected stories Nalini Jones establishes herself as a strong new voice in contemporary fiction. Home to her characters is a Catholic town in India but the tales of their relationships ambitions and concerns are altogether universal capturing the expectations joys and losses experienced by families everywhere.

A mother pours her religious fervour out in letters to her son whom she has sent away to a seminary. Years after his father's sudden death in a movie theatre an older man begins to see his long-dead parent riding a bicycle around town. A brash eccentric aunt speaks her mind and leaves home to tend her mother's cataract surgery a daughter wonders how much she should reveal of her new life in the United States. American childhoods Indian childhoods love abroad love at home - the worlds of these characters mirror and refract each other in a play of revelation and secrecy.