Read Of The Week (May 28 to June 3)

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning — and in Kerala, water is everywhere.

At the turn of the century, a 12-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her 40-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch — known as Big Ammachi — will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.

Abraham Verghese is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the author of books including My Own Country and The Tennis Partner. His most recent book, Cutting for Stone, spent 107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 1.5 million copies in the US alone. It was translated into more than 20 languages and is being adapted for film.