The Vine of Desire (51 page)
Read The Vine of Desire Online
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to:
My agent, Sandra Dijkstra, for your ongoing championship of my work
My editor, Deb Futter, for your careful and clear vision
My mother, Tatini Banerjee, and my mother-in-law, Sita Divakaruni, for your blessings
Murthy, Abhay, and Anand for making me laugh when I needed it most
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and Swami Chinmayananda for guiding my desires
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, FEBRUARY 2003
Copyright © 2002 by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2002.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows: Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee, 1956–
The vine of desire: a novel / by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. East Indian American women—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Women immigrants—Fiction. 4. Single mothers—Fiction. 5. Married women—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.I86 V56 2002
813′.54—dc21 2001042293
eISBN: 978-1-4000-7581-2
v3.0
Table of Contents
Book One - Subterranean Truths
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Two - Remembrance and Forgetting
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue