In celebration of AAPI Month, we’re reading Marriage of a Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu.

A necessary and exciting addition to the Sri Lankan-American and LGBTQ canons, SJ Sindu’s debut novel offers a moving and sharply rendered​ exploration of friendship, family, love, and loss. Lucky and her husband, Krishna, are gay. They present an illusion of marital bliss to their conservative Sri Lankan–American families while each date is on the side. It’s not ideal, but it seems to be working for Lucky. She goes out dancing. She drinks a bit. She makes ends meet by doing digital art on commission. But when Lucky’s grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her childhood home and unexpectedly reconnects with her former best friend and first lover, Nisha, who is preparing for her arranged wedding with a man she’s never met. As the connection between the two women is rekindled, Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. But does Nisha want to be saved? And after a decade’s worth of lying, can Lucky break free of her own circumstances and build a new life? Is she willing to walk away from all she values about her parents and community to live in a new truth? As Lucky — an outsider no matter what choices she makes — is pushed to the breaking point, Marriage of a Thousand Lies offers a vivid exploration of a life lived at a complex intersection of race, sexuality, and nationality.

About the Book Club

NWA Equality’s Reading Between the Lines LGBTQ book club typically meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at rotating locations in Benton and Washington Counties. Reading selections include a variety of cross-cultural and Queer subjects and works by LGBTQ authors. The book club is open to LGBTQ individuals and our allies, 18 and older. Please fill out a one-time registration here.

Books are available through our local program partners Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville and Two Friends Book Shop in Bentonville. Follow us on social media to win free books courtesy of program sponsor Tyson Foods.