Zigzag Way

In The Zigzag Way, the critically acclaimed novelist Anita Desai deftly
explores cultural fault lines in an evocative story of expatriates and
travelers adrift in a foreign land. The suspiciously enigmatic Dona
Vera, the fierce Austrian widow of a mining baron, has become a local
legend in a town in the Sierra Madre, but her reputation for philanthropy
glosses over a darker history. On his first trip abroad, Harvard
grad student Eric traces his family"s history to the town and stumbles
onto a path of self-discovery. In an atmospheric story culminating on
the Day of the Dead, Desai examines the subtle interplay between past
and present by interweaving Eric"s story with that of his immigrant
grandparents. Gorgeously nuanced and greatly satisfying, The Zigzag
Way is "an elegant, exquisite miniature . . . a vivid, unlooked-for gem
by a master of the craft" (Elle).