The First House (2026)

By Avni Doshi

“Each page is sharp, piercing, and totally defiant of the expected.” —Douglas Stuart “[A] beautiful book that delights in resisting its readers’ expectations.” —Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author From the Booker Prize finalist author of Burnt Sugar comes a riveting and lyrical novel of rupture and rebirth, of one woman’s journey to understand the fault lines in her marriage, her home, and her family. When my husband comes into the bedroom we have shared for thirteen years and tells me he doesn’t want to be married anymore, I reach for my neck. My head is missing. A husband announces he is leaving, that he was never happy. A woman is left behind with their two children in the house they built together, reeling at this forced recasting of the story of their marriage. Everything becomes strange: an encounter at the grocery store, a looming cicada horde, a statue of Diana that suddenly appears in her neighbor’s yard. Or was it always there? As she wades through the aftermath of her marriage, her complicated family resurfaces. Although close to her parents, her relationship with them is strained, and she is fully estranged from her older sister—the perfect daughter—who…

Published

2026