Decades after an interrupted visit to his mother's home in 1979 India triggers a haunting series of events, brain surgeon Thomas Eapen begins having conversations with his dead relatives, prompting his daughter to investigate a painful family history.

One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbors gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants, some of whom have barely spoken to each other, become real neighbors. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas...