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In Uttama Kirit Patel’s debut novel, Shape of an Apostrophe, parenthood goes under the microscope.

Plunged into the deep end of grief at the loss of her beloved father, Lina experiences the world in a state of disorientation. She occupies her life like a visitor, uneasy around those who seem to be in a version of reality she does not share. In her resentment of their perfectly not-upturned lives, sometimes a cruel thought or two catches her unaware: she wishes they had died instead. This is also what makes Patel’s portrayal of grief arresting. Even when wrestling with complicated feelings in every other important relationship in her life, the totality of what she has lost in her father’s death leaves the protagonist with no choice but to be completely honest about the abyss she seems to be staring down into.

And now she is pregnant, with a child she does not want. But her lack of want – apparently straightforward at the beginning – morphs shapes, colours the waters of her reasons inky. Her mother had died in childbirth: this is a truth from which ways of thinking emerge.

All of this is complicated further by the fact that life at the centre of a flourishing family business...

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