{"id":49353,"date":"2022-05-10T11:12:12","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T15:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=49353"},"modified":"2022-05-04T19:27:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T23:27:35","slug":"circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Circa by Devi S. Laskar [in Shelf Awareness]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-49266\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/04\/Circa-Devi-Laskar-BookDragon-529x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/04\/Circa-Devi-Laskar-BookDragon-529x800.jpg 529w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/04\/Circa-Devi-Laskar-BookDragon.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/>Devi S. Laskar&#8217;s sophomore novel,\u00a0<em>Circa<\/em>, is an intense meditation on multigenerational grief and loss. Laskar (<a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-atlas-of-reds-and-blues-by-devi-s-laskar-in-booklist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Atlas of Reds and Blues<\/em><\/a>) adopts an uncommon second-person narration for Heera, born in New York and raised in Raleigh, N.C., by Indian immigrant parents. She&#8217;s American by birthright, but she&#8217;s relentlessly reminded, &#8220;it is the India of your ma and baba&#8217;s past where you live day to day.&#8221; For now, she&#8217;s a senior facing high expectations: &#8220;it will reflect badly if she cannot even enter Princeton or Harvard.&#8221; Her best friends \u2013 despite the complicated history their parents share with Heera&#8217;s parents \u2013 are siblings Marie and Marco, the latter a year older and maybe her first love.<\/p>\n<p>And then a drunk driver kills Marie on Heera&#8217;s 18th birthday. Heera and Marco both &#8220;change for good in those hours just after Marie dies.&#8221; Marco demands to be called Crash. Heera becomes Dia \u2013 &#8220;Heera&#8221; means &#8220;diamond&#8221; in Bengali \u2013 and assumes its &#8220;glassy hard brilliance &#8230; dry-eyed and stoic.&#8221; The survivors veer sharply apart. Heera accepts an arranged marriage in New York City, although her disengaged husband allows her to attend college. Marco all but vanishes, until he appears unexpectedly at an extended family celebration. Everything \u2013 or nothing \u2013 could change.<\/p>\n<p>Set in the late 1980s through the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Laskar&#8217;s slim narrative shrewdly belies fierce depth. While Marie&#8217;s shocking death mutes Heera for years, the women around her seem to exemplify possible paths: her resigned mother; her mother-in-law, trapped by others&#8217; opinions; and a family friend&#8217;s missing daughter. Skillfully and empathically, Laskar carves Heera a future of her own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shelf-awareness.com\/sar-issue.html?issue=1120#m19611\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8220;Fiction,&#8221; <em>Shelf Awareness<\/em>, May 3, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers:<\/strong> Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Devi S. Laskar&#8217;s sophomore novel,\u00a0Circa, is an intense meditation on multigenerational grief and loss. Laskar (The Atlas of Reds and Blues) adopts an uncommon second-person narration for Heera, born in New York and raised in Raleigh, N.C., by Indian immigrant parents. She&#8217;s American by birthright,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,53,6535,18],"tags":[84,6608,10263,58,75,8464,10,11,51,13,129,39,6872,44],"class_list":["post-49353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-indian-american","category-repost","category-south-asian-american","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-circa","tag-coming-of-age","tag-death","tag-devi-s-laskar","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-identity","tag-love","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-shelf-awareness","tag-siblings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Circa by Devi S. 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She&#8217;s American by birthright,...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-10T15:12:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-04T23:27:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/04\/Circa-Devi-Laskar-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"967\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Circa by Devi S. Laskar [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Circa by Devi S. Laskar [in Shelf Awareness] - BookDragon","og_description":"Devi S. Laskar&#8217;s sophomore novel,\u00a0Circa, is an intense meditation on multigenerational grief and loss. Laskar (The Atlas of Reds and Blues) adopts an uncommon second-person narration for Heera, born in New York and raised in Raleigh, N.C., by Indian immigrant parents. She&#8217;s American by birthright,...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2022-05-10T15:12:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-05-04T23:27:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":967,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/04\/Circa-Devi-Laskar-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/circa-by-devi-s-laskar-in-shelf-awareness\/","name":"Circa by Devi S. 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