The Unbroken Coast — Nalini Jones

A luminous debut novel -- the story of a friendship between a young schoolgirl and an aging professor -- that follows them over the years and gives us an intimate look at a Catholic community in a Bombay fishing village

In Varuna, a devout Catholic fishing community in Bombay, life centers around Our Lady of the Navigators, the local church. The fishing boats go out for a catch; with luck, they return with a full boat, though sometimes they do not return at all. It is a town driven by church and sea, sea and church.

Francis Almeida and young Celia D'Mello meet one day when she cuts school. Celia has lost one of her shoes and can't go to her strict Catholic school in sandals, but is too afraid to tell her parents they'll need to buy her new ones;  Francis -- a retired history professor who is slowly becoming senile -- accidentally runs into her with his bicycle. This accident binds these two families together in unexpected ways.

We follow them, and their community, over the years through domestic changes, births, deaths, and political upheaval,  in a novel that depicts love, loss, and family bonds, as well as a subtly devastating portrayal of  the way AIDS infiltrated marriages, and the stigmas it carried with it. More than a decade in the making, with indelible characters, this novel is a beautiful invitation into a close-knit world.