Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23

The stories in Where to Carry the Sound center on characters excavating their own lives: unearthing family secrets, exploring inherited silences, and rediscovering what might have seemed lost to them. Wherever these characters find themselves--including brewing bootleg liquor in Prohibition-era Bombay, finding remnants of a new language at an archaeological dig in Andhra Pradesh, seeking mirages above the Arctic Circle, or setting up an outpost on the moon--each seeks to reconcile a past continually bleeding into the present and to forge a path of belonging to carry them into the future.

"This collection of nine magical stories (including a few actual fairy tales) enchanted me. Many of the stories are set in India, and most of the narrators are women--photographers, bootleggers, archeologists, religious pilgrims, perfumers, and one lonely lunar caretaker. The writing is both lush and lean, and the images of marigolds, haunted villages, and man-killing tigers are memorable. The ends aren't always happily-ever-after but are always satisfying. Where to Carry the Sound is a delight to read."--Molly Giles, judge and author of The Home for Unwed Husbands