Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Harper)

Canadian author Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s debut novel Secret Daughter is the story of two women who live worlds apart but have an unseen bond that will affect both of their lives. 

Somer has everything she could want in life - a good marriage, a nice and caring husband who is also a doctor. His name is Krishnan and he is originally from India. She also has a great career as a physician in San Francisco. However, the only thing that eludes her is the ability to bear any children of her own. 

In the same year, across the globe, in a rural town in India, Kavita gave birth to her second daughter. Her first one was taken soon after it was born and was never seen or heard from again. Kavita refuses to give up her second child without a fight and in order to save her life, she makes the decision to give her up for adoption.

Asha is an Indian child adopted from an orphanage in Mumbai. It is this girl that connects the two women who do not have anything in common. We follow the lives of both families over a span of more than twenty years. It is Asha’s search for her own identity that leads her to India to find a part of herself that she feels has been missing. 

One of Somer’s wishes is to be a mother. She’s had one previous miscarriage so she knows the symptoms. Her husband has taken her to the hospital and she has woken up to see an IV stand next to her bed. The next thing she hears is a doctor telling her “she’s clean”. This upsets her more than the doctors, nurses, or her husband can imagine. She feels “they just see her as a patient to be doctored, a piece of human equipment to be repaired. Just another body to be cleaned up.”

In a small town called Dahanu in India, Kavita feels as strongly about saving her daughter. She knows her husband and his family are all disappointed in her giving birth to another girl. The first one was taken away quickly so Kavita vowed that the same fate would not await her second child. With the help of her sister and a vast amount of courage, she and her sister walk from Dahanu to an orphanage in Bombay. Kavita names her daughter Usha. “Usha is Kavita’s choice alone. A secret name for her secret daughter.”

As we follow the lives of both families, we see Asha growing up and the older she gets, the more curious she becomes about her biological parents. This issue puts a strain on the relationship between her and her mother. They drift even further apart when Asha wins a scholarship and tells her mother she will be staying in India for a year to work on a project about children living in poverty. Her daughter’s decision not only affects their relationship but it also affects Somer’s relationship with her husband. 

I imagine many adoptees go through a crisis of identity at one time or another. Especially if they have been adopted from a third world country and brought up in the U.S., Australia, or the U.K. They grow up to find that they look nothing like their parents and begin to question who they are and where they are really from. However, most people do not give thought to the adoptee’s parents and how the children’s actions will affect them as well. In this emotional roller-coaster of a story, one learns about the power of love and the true meaning of family. ~Ernie Hoyt