Hardev Dange is suffering through a tumultuous year. Hes just been informed that the bank is going to foreclose on his house. His fickle daughter Birendra is on the verge of marriage, his son Emile is studying curses (while falling in love with a fellow male grad student), and his younger daughter, Dorothy, whos deaf, is working at a tattoo and body piercing parlour and collecting stories from the older men languishing at her local hangout. And because hes confined to a wheelchair, Hardev is dependent on his homecare worker, the kleptomaniac Rodriguez, to help him devise a plan to keep house and home together. In this modern, multicultural re-telling of King Lear, Uppal explores the vulnerability and complexity of family and inheritance. She exposes the tragic and comedic dimensions of our failures to communicate and the consequences of our betrayals, which result in disappointment and disillusionment, but also, unexpectedly, in moments of compassion and love.From the Hardcover edition.