Sunetra Gupta's new novel tells the story of three generations, and of a house in Calcutta called Mandalay. Built by a British officer, it passes into the hands of the wealthy Roy family. It is to Mandalay that Debendranath's father brings his clever but childlike bride after their wedding. Many years later Debendranath's brother brings his own wife, the woman with whom Debendranath is fated to fall in love. The family's fortunes fluctuate, independence and partition robs them of much of their wealth, and Debendranath flees the house, his family and his hopeless love, to find a new life in England. By the time Debendranath returns from the dead, Mandalay is in ruins, all but abandoned by the next generation, a house full of ghosts