Immigrating to America, a young girl navigates between her family's Bengali traditions and her new country's culture.

Ranee worries that her children are losing their Indian culture. Sonia is wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair. Tara seeks the limelight to hide her true self. Shanti desperately tries to make peace in the family. Anna fights to preserve Bengal tigers and her Bengali identity. As each Das woman decides which Bengali traditions to uphold in America, one hard truth remains: some scars take generations to heal.

"From a New York Times reporter and memoirist Sopan Deb comes a heartwarming and charmingly funny debut novel about a box in the attic that leads one Bengali-American family down a path toward rediscovering family love, even when splintered. Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his 60s, he finds himself iced out of his traditional Bengali community after an uncouth divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn't spoken to his eldest daughter...

When a woman--known only as Mother--moves her family from Atlanta to its wealthy suburbs, she discovers that neither the times nor the people have changed since her childhood in a small Southern town. Despite the intervening decades, Mother is met with the same questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? The American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants, she finds that her answer-- Here --is never enough. Mother's simmering anger...