Half Life

Roopa Farooki

ISBN 10: 0312577907 / ISBN 13: 9780312577902

Published by St. Martin's Press, 2010

About this Item

From the author of Corner Shop and Bitter Sweets comes a luminous new novel about one woman's journey back home - to a past she once wanted only to forget. It's time to stop fighting, and go home. Those were the words, written by a minor but well-reputed Bengali poet, that finally persuaded Aruna Ahmed Jones to exit her ground-floor Victorian flat wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keep on walking. Leaving behind the handsome Dr. Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore, and her old life. When Aruna left for London, she was fleeing many things: her recently deceased father, the only family she'd ever had; her best friend and lover, Jazz, and the life they'd tried, and failed, to create together; the complicated psychological diagnosis she preferred to forget. But after years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming home--making peace with Jazz, with her past, and even with herself--that is hard. With shades of Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake, Roopa Farooki's novel is luminous and gripping.

Seller Inventory # CIN0312577907G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Half Life
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312577907
• ISBN 13: 9780312577902
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

On the morning that changes everything, Aruna Ahmed Jones walks out of her ground-floor Victorian apartment in London wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keeps on walking.  Leaving behind the handsome Dr. Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore and her old life.  Educated and beautiful, Aruna has a desperate need to risk it all.  But why?  Waiting for her is a messy past and a perfect past lover she had once abandoned without even saying goodbye – a story left unfinished – until now.

Aruna is not running away from home, she is running back to the home she always had, before it became impossible for her to stay.  Before her father, the only family she’d ever known, passed away.  Before she tried, and failed, to create a life and a family with her best friend and lover, Jazz.  Before her doctor delivered a complicated psychological diagnosis she’d rather forget.  After years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming home—making peace with her past, with Jazz and those they have loved—that is hard.  Spanning the world from London to Singapore to India and back again, Half Life is a richly layered tale of love and conflict, friendship and sacrifice, the luminous story of a young woman who risks everything in order to find where she truly belongs.

About the Author

Roopa Farooki was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and brought up in London.  She graduated from New College, Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and worked in advertising before writing fiction full time.  Roopa now lives in Southeast England and Southwest France with her husband and two young sons, and teaches creative writing at the Canterbury Christ Chuch University masters' program.