Every Happiness

＂A bold and moving novel . . . marks the arrival of a radiant new voice.＂ - Megha Majumdar, author of A Guardian and a Thief

Every Happiness is a dazzling debut that explores the ties that bind two women across decades and continents despite rivalry, class difference, and the conflicting needs of family and self.

Deepa and Ruchi are 12 years old when they meet at their Catholic school in India, but their connection is swift and lasting. As the two girls grow up and face their families’ expectations and the limits of their ambitions, their friendship is marked by intimacy, jealousy, and suppressed desire.

When, in their twenties, Deepa marries a doctor and moves from India to the suburbs of Connecticut, Ruchi quickly finds an engineer bound for the same state and follows her friend across the world. But life in the United States is different than either woman expects. Deepa’s daughter seeks affection Deepa refuses to give, and Ruchi’s son resists her smothering care. At the same time, Deepa and Ruchi find their closeness tested by a growing class disparity, competing family needs, and the differences in their desires. Ultimately, when Ruchi discovers a dangerous secret about Deepa’s husband’s wealth, both women are forced to weigh the tangled bonds of their friendship with their lives, and their families’, in the burgeoning Indian American community.

＂Moving and unforgettable＂ (Kimberly King Parsons), Every Happiness explores the slippery edges of a lifelong relationship, and the invisible threads that bind us, sometimes painfully, to those we love most.

Reena Shah is a Fiction Fellow at the Michener MFA program, and a Senior Fiction Editor at The Rumpus and was a 2022-2023 Steinbeck Fellow. For many years she was a kathak dancer and public school teacher in New York and India. She now lives in Austin, TX.