Fear and Lovely

Overview

Mallika is a painfully shy young woman growing up in the heart of a close-knit, sometimes stifling New Delhi colony.

Though she is surrounded by love, her life is complicated by secrets that she, her mother and her aunt work hard to keep. After suffering a trauma aged nineteen that causes her to lose three days of her memory and spiral into a deep depression, Mallika must find a way out of the abyss, back to herself and those she cares about. But she must also hide her mental illness from her community.

In a narrative that unfolds elliptically from the perspectives of Mallika and the seven people closest to her, the astonishing story of these characters' intertwining lives emerges.

For Mallika's family, childhood friends and the two men she loves are also hiding truths. As each gives voice to contending with their own struggles, secrets and silences shatter.

As irreverent and funny as it is serious and anguished, Fear and Lovely is a tender, character-driven story of love, longing, terror and healing that will keep you turning pages, and won't let you go.

Reviews

"To read [Anjana Appachana] as a young college student was not only intoxicating, it was soul-changing. It was metanoia." —Junot Diaz

"Blending emotional depth with elements of melodrama reminiscent of popular Indian films, Appachana succeeds in drawing us deep into this complex vision of shattered happiness and withered dreams… She convincingly portrays the strains on women in modern India' - Andersen Tepper, New York Times Book Review on Listening Now

"A vivid mosaic of Indian life… A panorama filled with insight and surprise, inviting, absorbing and satisfying." —Boston Globe on Listening Now

"Appachana is an extremely gifted writer." —Sunday Observer on Incantations

"Appachana's stories proclaim a versatile and exciting talent." —New Statesman and Society on Incantations

Author Biography

Anjana Appachana was born and educated in India, where she did her BA (Hons) in English at Delhi University and her MA in Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University. After working in India for a few years, she went on to do her MFA in Creative Writing at Penn State. Subsequently, she has been living both in the US and in India. Appachana's book Incantations & Other Stories was published in the UK, India, the US, Germany and France, and her novel Listening Now, in the US, India and France. Her short stories have been published in various journals, anthologies and magazines. Appachana is a recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and an O. Henry Festival prize. She is based in Arizona.