Homework

The narrator of Suneeta Peres da Costa's Homework was born with antennae on her head, and no matter what surgery doctors attempt, they keep growing back. One doctor doesn't see much of a problem, though he does admit that Mina Pereira "might be a little sensitive, that's all, there are enough nerve endings in those things for lightning to strike them!" Over time Mina comes to think of them as her "feelers," through which she receives a heightened perception of the emotions flowing through the atmosphere around her. And what a highly charged atmosphere the Pereira house holds: Mina's mother is suffering a breakdown that leads her to become obsessed with birds--to the point of trying to become one. Her father has responded by donning a miner's helmet and retreating into the basement. Meanwhile, Mina's child-genius sister scorns her and her schoolmates consider her a freak of nature.

Peres da Costa's first novel is the heartbreaking story of a little girl's struggle to survive a family so dysfunctional that it constantly teeters on the edge of chaos. Though the author was born in 1977, her writing is astonishingly mature, her blend of bright humor and raw pain reminiscent of Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum and of early Ian McEwan. An extraordinary debut infused with Goan spice. --Anna Davis