Passage West

A sweeping, vibrant first novel following a family of Indian sharecroppers at the onset of World War I, revealing a little-known part of California history

1914: Ram Singh arrives in the Imperial Valley on the Mexican border, reluctantly accepting his friend Karak&;s offer of work and partnership in a small cantaloupe farm. Ram is unmoored; fleeing violence in Oregon, he desperately longs to return to his wife and newborn son in Punjab&;but he is duty bound to make his fortune first.

In the Valley, American settlement is still new and the rules are ever shifting. Alongside Karak; Jivan and his wife, Kishen; and Amarjeet, a U.S. soldier, Ram struggles to farm in the unforgiving desert. When he meets an alluring woman who has fought in Mexico&;s revolution, he strives to stay true to his wife. The Valley is full of settlers hailing from other cities and different continents. The stakes are high and times are desperate&;just one bad harvest or stolen crop could destabilize a family. And as anti- immigrant sentiment rises among white residents, the tensions of life in the west finally boil over.

"Reddi’s engrossing first novel (after the collection Karma) explores the immigrant experience of Indian-Americans in early 20th-century California.... Reddi vividly evokes the landscape and the characters’ place in it, making the conclusion all the more wrenching. Reddi’s Steinbeck-ian tale adds a valuable contribution to the stories of immigrants in California." (Publishers Weekly)

Published April 21, 2020