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.