It wasn't because she passed shops selling schoolbags and remembered Papa buying new backpacks for her and Rohit at the start of each school year. It wasn't because she passed Metro Shoes and remembered going there with Mummy at the start of each school year. It wasn't because she heard her own distant laughter in the laughter coming from the schoolgirls walking ahead of her, saw her former self in the way they half skipped, half walked down the sidewalk. Her anxiety wasn't caused by the vendors at the roadside stalls who begged her to examine their leather purses and silver jewelry and wooden statues. Smita's heart began to flutter, and her hands turned clammy within moments of strolling down the Causeway. In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. While Meena's fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. As she follows the case of Meena-a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man-Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one's own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita's own past.

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back.

Honor book thrity umrigar