Excerpt from A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"There's some truth to that," Ricky agreed. "Crime rates are soaring; gun sales are up. People are scared."

"You wouldn't ... get a gun?" Ashok lowered his voice to a whisper on the last word. The illumined infinity pool began to glow as the sky grew dusky.

"Maybe." Vikram raised an eyebrow. His hair, more salt than pepper now, gave him the aura of someone wiser, though the men were all in their late forties. "Not a bad idea. But what I really mean is protect yourself like this, with assets. Have some space around you, a gate on your property. Send your kids to a country club school." He swirled the ice cube in his scotch before taking a long swig. "I'm buying up gold bullion, just in case."

"What?" Ashok laughed. "Gold? You can't be serious."

Vikram cocked his head. "What if it all goes to hell? What if they lock down your bank accounts for some invented reason and hoodlums are banging at your door for blood?"

"Okay, bhai, now you sound a little crazy," Ashok said, even as Vikram's suggestions formed hairline cracks of doubt in his own mind.

"Thank our president," Vikram said. "Nothing is inconceivable anymore. The best thing is to just try to blend in, be invisible. Personally, I don't like this term, people of color. I don't want to be categorized with Blacks and Mexicans. I don't even want to give white people the idea of targeting us."

"No one's going to target us," Ashok said. "We build their technology, we run their companies. They can't get rid of us. The internet would break." He laughed, trying to lighten the conversation.

"What about the Blacks?" Vikram said. "They're the best entertainers and athletes, and

they're still targeted."

"That's different," Ashok said. "There's history there."

"It's different"—Ricky took a sip of his scotch—"until it's not."

Before their discussion could travel down that rocky path, it was interrupted by the timely appearance of Ashok's wife, heading toward them with a tray of samosas, which she placed on the table. The men busied themselves, spooning chutneys over their hot pastries as Priya swept back across the lawn to rejoin the other women.

* * *

Inside, Priya took a stool at the vast marble island, watching uneasily as the diminutive housekeeper scrubbed away at the sink. Normally at these dinner gatherings, the wives helped one another. They all knew their way around one another's kitchens, how to warm the ovens, and where the plastic tubs were stored. Priya relished this familiarity with other Indian families, their shorthand interactions that approximated the feeling of family in this foreign land. Even after nearly two decades, she still thought of this country as her adopted home, a little uneasy with the remaining traces of her accent or habits in mixed crowds.

"Priya darling, more wine?" Veena asked, one perfectly manicured hand hovering a bottle over Priya's half-full glass before she poured.

"That poor woman," Archana said as the television in the adjacent family room showed silent footage of a middle-aged Black woman standing in front of a makeshift sidewalk memorial. "Just out for a walk, and her boy gets shot down."

"Well, not exactly," Veena said, reaching over to top off Archana's wineglass as well. "He was acting suspicious. Not that it justifies what the police did. I'm just saying, you have to keep your nose clean."

"Suspicious? He just had his hands in his pockets," Archana said.

"Yes, his very baggy pockets that could have held anything," Veena said. "At least that's what the police thought."

Archie sighed heavily. "Yeah, Mountain Dew and a box of Whoppers, as it turned out."

Priya watched the woman on the screen, her voice muted but her agony broadcast through her reddened eyes, the quivering of her mouth as she spoke into an assembly of microphones.

Excerpted from A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Copyright © 2024 by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Excerpted by permission of Mariner Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.