Amit Mitra finds a letter from an uncle who left the picture long ago. His mother Romola Mitra found the letter from the uncle in her first days as a newlywed. Her husband Avinash Mitra never knew that letter from the uncle existed. All the while, this letter breeds secrets and secrets the small family manages to keep under wraps in spite of the difficulties in their lives. The past and present collide as the family is torn between their roots in India and their lives in America. From the McDonald's down the street to the far-distant home in Calcutta, Romola must find where she belongs in the world after her husband is gone. Full of secret romances and questionable histories, the story of the Mitra family unwinds itself in short stories masterfully written in DON'T LET HIM KNOW.

DON'T LET HIM KNOW is a magnificent debut novel. I couldn't put it down. It is so colorful and rich in detail that I found myself transported from my desk to India, a world of tradition and family ties buried in spice. One can almost feel the pressures on each member of the family as they try to go about normal lives even in the face of the most difficult problems the world can offer. I found myself able to identify well with Romola, a woman whose life is turned upside down by a marriage she does not particularly desire and a husband whose love she cannot fully depend on. When she first reads the letter which changes everything for her, her pain is so focused and so real. The prose and points of view are all beautifully varied but still similar enough to be reminiscent of one another.

This is a short-but-intense novel which I would recommend to any reader who wants to truly feel the emotions of a complex family life which holds secrets both personal and shared. By the time the final story ends the reader has been transported to an amazing world where even the most mundane of things—a letter, a hamburger, a lipstick—has become a catalyst for huge emotional change. DON'T LET HIM KNOW is the beginning of what I believe is a promising literary career.

Book Summary

In a boxy apartment building in an Illinois university town, Romola Mitra, a newly arrived young bride, anxiously awaits her first letter from home in India. When she accidentally opens the wrong letter, it changes her life. Decades letter, her son Amit finds that letter and thinks he has discovered his mother's secret. But secrets have their own secrets sometimes.

Amit does not know that Avinash, his dependable and devoted father, has been timidly visiting gay chat rooms, driven by the lifelong desires he never allowed himself to indulge. Avinash, for his part, doesn't understand what his dutiful wife gave up in marrying him -- the memories of romance she keeps tucked away.

Growing up in Calcutta, in a house bustling with feisty grandmothers, Amit has been shielded from his parents' secrets. Now he's a successful computer engineer, settled in San Franscisco yet torn between his new life and his duties to the one he left behind.

Moving from adolescent rooftop games to adult encounters in gay bars, from hair salons in Calcutta to McDonald's drive-thrus in California, Don't Let Him Know is an unforgettable story about family and the sacrifices we make for those we love. Tender, funny, and beautifully told, it marks the arrival of a resonant new voice.