Tell Me How to Be

From the author of If You See Me, Don't Say Hi (a NYTBR Choice and NPR Best Book of the Year), a story set in Illinois over one summer, as an Indian-American man comes out to his family. One year after the death of his father, Akash, a songwriter in Los Angeles, is living a double life, sharing an apartment with his boyfriend while evading his mother's pleas that he find a wife. When Akash learns his mother has sold his childhood home in Illinois in order to move back to London, he returns to pack up his things, honor the death of his father, and mend his strained relationships with his mother and brother. What he doesn't anticipate is running into Parth--a childhood friend with whom he'd shared his first romantic connection. Parth, too, has returned home, managing his parents' motel while they are away in India. What starts as a farewell soon becomes the beginning of a love affair between the two, and Akash must decide between the life he left behind and the one he's since created. Set against the backdrop of the Trump era, as racial tensions simmer, Tell Me How to Be is a story of betrayal and the journey toward reconciliation. But most of all, it is a testament to the overpowering force of first love and how it teaches us to be in the world.