A near-future literary family saga
A Way of Staying Close
An American family did everything right.Then their country turned away.
Told thirty years later by the daughter who remembers, A Way of Staying Close is a novel about belonging, inherited silence, and the ordinary life a country can quietly take away.
“My heart literally ached at the end of this novel. Tragic, beautifully written, and horrifying.”
- Nancy Graben, librarian
Both heartbreaking and sobering, says Kirkus Reviews · 9.25/10, The BookLife Prize
“She thought she would have that forever. That is the most human thought there is.”
The story
A family saga about belonging, silence and what survives
It is 2032. On a quiet street in Westwood, Massachusetts, Kaz Malik takes the 5:43 train home to a kitchen that smells like turmeric and Friday evening.
His wife Aamina has been cooking since four. His older daughter rehearses through the ceiling. His younger daughter, Ariana, pretends to do her homework at the table. After dinner, Kaz takes her up the hill behind the house and teaches her the names of Jupiter's moons. To know the name of a thing, he tells her, is a way of staying close to it.
On the counter, under a grocery circular, an envelope from a federal agency sits unopened. Kaz fills out the forms. Saves the confirmation numbers. Does everything correctly. It is not enough. Told by Ariana decades later, this is the story of one family's slow undoing by the ordinary machinery of fear, and of what remains when everything that can be held is gone.
For readers of Mohsin Hamid's Exit West, Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland, and Damon Galgut's The Promise.
Why readers say it stays with them
The threat begins quietly
Power appears at the scale of family life: a smile arriving half a second late, an official envelope beneath a grocery circular, tea left to go cold.
Ariana tells the story thirty years later, separating what she witnessed from what the documents prove and what grief has forced her to imagine. The machinery is vast. Its first effects are almost too small to name.
From the novel
A father gives his daughter something no system can take
He said knowing the name of a thing is a way of staying close to it. The names of the moons, the names of the people you love, the names of the places that hold you - these can never be taken from you, even when everything else is. A knowledge that says I am here. I am not leaving. I know your name.
He did not know he was planting things he would never eat.
What readers remember
You may finish this novel and stand in your own kitchen for a moment, listening.
The refrigerator. A voice in the next room. The ordinary sound of everyone still here.
Critical praise
Early recognition for a debut novel
9.25/10
The BookLife Prize
“A loving, fully realized portrait of a particular family . . . depicted with great warmth in beautiful prose.”
- Kirkus Reviews
“Chowdry’s characters anchor this fervid narrative with sincerity and vulnerability.”
- The BookLife Prize
Early readers
In readers’ own words
“My heart literally ached at the end of this novel. It’s tragic, beautifully written, and horrifying.”
- Nancy GrabenLibrarian, NetGalley
“It even made me wish my dad were still here so I could hear his voice again.”
- Debbie T.NetGalley reviewer
“This book had me staying up late in tears. The mundanity of their everyday contrasts with how they are treated.”
- Ronnica FattAuthor and NetGalley reviewer
Available for pre-order
Meet the Maliks before the world does
The Kindle edition publishes February 3, 2027. Pre-orders help an independent debut reach its first readers and arrive on your device when the book launches.
Paperback and hardcover editions are planned for 2027.
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