Shashi Deshpande

The Binding Vine Shashi Deshpande

This moving and exquisitely crafted novel renders visible the extraordinary endurance and grace concealed in women?s everyday lives. The lives of three women who are "haunted by fears, secrets, and deep grief" (Washington Post) are bound together by strands of life and hope?a binding vine of love, concern, and connection that spreads across chasms of time, social class, and even death. The Baltimore Sun declared the novel, "Chekhovian . . . Deshpande?s story of a woman who loses a daughter is linked to the politics of India and its tradition of patriarchy."