Quarantine (Stories)

“An extraordinary book that transcends gender and race and culture and sexual identity to speak to our universal humanity and the quest we all share for a self.” — Robert Olen Butler

Reminiscent of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and the work of Michael Cunningham, Rahul Mehta’s debut short story collection is an emotionally arresting exploration of the lives of Indian-American gay men and their families. 

With buoyant humor and incisive, cunning prose, Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in Quarantine are Westernized in some ways, with cosmopolitan views on friendship and sex, while struggling to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Grappling with the issues that concern all gay men—social acceptance, the right to pursue happiness, and the heavy toll of listening to their hearts and bodies—they confront an elder generation's attachment to old-country ways. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching, yet frequently funny stories find themselves quarantined.