Review by Michelle Mendonca Bambawale

During the pandemic, Sharbelle discovered a shoe box tied in a faded red satin ribbon stuffed with a few of her parents’ letters to each other. The paper was frail, the handwriting faded, but the box had survived seventy years, shifting times and places, harsh Goan monsoons and a termite infestation. Reading them, Sharbelle learned about her parents lives before they had even met each other. She says in the Prologue, “of the hundreds of letters Mum Marge wrote over the span of six years, only fifty or so survived the termites’ assault. Of Dad Rodrigos’ only three.”