Ma

Ma is the central character of the novel and the primary point of view through which readers experience the collapsing city. She is a middle aged mother who lives with her father, Dadu, and her small daughter, Mishti, while her husband, Baba, works as a scientist in America. Ma’s defining trait is her fierce, practical devotion to her child and her aging father, which drives her to navigate long lines, offices, and informal networks in order to protect them and secure a future abroad. She works at an animal shelter funded by a wealthy donor, and through this job she moves between worlds of online charity, street level poverty, and bureaucratic gatekeeping. Ma clings to the hope offered by climate visas and imagines America as a place of order, abundance, and safety, even as every step in the process reveals how fragile that hope is. Her moral...