A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart
An expansive and poignant novel of love, radical ambition, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I
At a party near Stanford University's campus in 1917, Cora Trent, a graduate student raised in the rugged mining towns of the American West, meets Indra Mukherjee, an Indian revolutionary newly arrived in California. Indra is grieving the recent loss of a friend and unsure of the place violence has in the cause of national liberation, while Cora is seeking a new life that stays true to her aspirations as a writer and an idealist. They spark an instant connection, and their passionate romance deepens as they attend protests alongside anticolonial dissidents and socialize with eccentric thinkers in Berkeley and Palo Alto. All the while, Indra awaits orders from a mysterious German spymaster.
Cora and Indra quickly marry, even as the United States is drawn into the conflict in Europe and wartime patriotism begins to give way to increasing intolerance. When news of arrests threatens their future together, they are forced to flee to New York City with the hope that they can avoid the attention of the British and American authorities. Trying to find footing in their new life, Cora and Indra must reckon with divergent ambitions that challenge the foundations of their hasty marriage--and their freedom.
Profound, immersive, tenderly written, and with finely wrought characters drawn from the forgotten archives of American history, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is an extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life.
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Nishant Batsha is the author of the novel Mother Ocean Father Nation, named a finalist for a 2023 Lambda Literary Award and listed as one the best books of 2022 by NPR, among other honors. He lives in Buffalo, New York, with his family.
"Nishant Batsha's A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is a brilliant, important, and genuinely thrilling new novel. It's a story of love, anticolonial struggle, and fierce intellectual inquiry written in supple and lovely prose, with characters who are informed by the historical record, deeply imagined, and utterly alive. Batsha has given us a forgotten chapter of radical South Asian history, a meticulously drawn portrait of a century-ago California, and a fiercely moving work of art. We are lucky to have him writing today." -- Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different
"A beautifully written novel about love and revolution. Intellectual and ambitious, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart transports us to over a century ago, a time full of possibilities, challenging ideas of the nation state and identity that deeply resonate with our present moment." -- Akil Kumarasamy, author of Meet Us by the Roaring Sea
"A novel that pulses with urgency and love. Batsha deftly navigates the terrain between personal identity and political upheaval, crafting a story that is as much about the intricacies of love as the fight for justice. His characters are fully alive, with worlds richly drawn and choices hauntingly real. This book challenges and compels, asking us to consider what we're willing to sacrifice for what we hold dear. It resonates long after its last page, giving us more than enough time to put back together the very universal thing this story destroyed in order to fix: our hearts. Unforgettable." -- Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit
