A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart

An expansive and poignant novel of love, radical ambition, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I

At a party near Stanford University’s campus in 1917, Cora Trent, a graduate student raised in the rugged mining towns of the American West, meets Indra Mukherjee, an Indian revolutionary newly arrived in California. Indra is grieving the recent loss of a friend and unsure of the place violence has in the cause of national liberation, while Cora is seeking a new life that stays true to her aspirations as a writer and an idealist. They spark an instant connection, and their passionate romance deepens as they attend protests alongside anticolonial dissidents and socialize with eccentric thinkers in Berkeley and Palo Alto. All the while, Indra awaits orders from a mysterious German spymaster.

Cora and Indra quickly marry, even as the United States is drawn into the conflict in Europe and wartime patriotism begins to give way to increasing intolerance. When news of arrests threatens their future together, they are forced to flee to New York City with the hope that they can avoid the attention of the British and American authorities. Trying to find footing in their new life, Cora and Indra must reckon with divergent ambitions that challenge the foundations of their hasty marriage—and their freedom.

Profound, immersive, tenderly written, and with finely wrought characters drawn from the forgotten archives of American history, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is an extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life.