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The First House: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 10 Nov 26“Each page is sharp, piercing, and totally defiant of the expected.” —Douglas Stuart
From the Booker Prize finalist author of Burnt Sugar comes a riveting novel of rupture and rebirth, of one woman’s journey to understand the fault lines in her marriage, her home, and her family.
When my husband comes into the bedroom we have shared for thirteen years and tells me he doesn’t want to be married anymore, I reach for my neck. My head is missing.
A husband announces he is leaving, that he was never happy. A woman is left behind with their two children in the house they built together, reeling at this forced recasting of the story of their marriage. Everything becomes an encounter at the grocery store, a looming cicada horde, a statue of Diana that suddenly appears in her neighbor’s yard. Or was it always there?
As she wades through the aftermath of her marriage, her complicated family resurfaces. Although close to her parents, her relationship with them is strained, and she is fully estranged from her older sister—the perfect daughter—who still lives at home and always disapproved of her husband. So when did the trouble begin? And where will she go from here?
When she was a child, an astrologer in India told her parents that the family would die in water. Ever since, they’ve avoided pools and lakes and the ocean; no one ever learned to swim. From the Booker finalist and beloved author of Burnt Sugar comes a brilliant story of betrayal, renunciation, and renewal, of a woman spiraling who swims to the other side and comes up for air.
From the Booker Prize finalist author of Burnt Sugar comes a riveting novel of rupture and rebirth, of one woman’s journey to understand the fault lines in her marriage, her home, and her family.
When my husband comes into the bedroom we have shared for thirteen years and tells me he doesn’t want to be married anymore, I reach for my neck. My head is missing.
A husband announces he is leaving, that he was never happy. A woman is left behind with their two children in the house they built together, reeling at this forced recasting of the story of their marriage. Everything becomes an encounter at the grocery store, a looming cicada horde, a statue of Diana that suddenly appears in her neighbor’s yard. Or was it always there?
As she wades through the aftermath of her marriage, her complicated family resurfaces. Although close to her parents, her relationship with them is strained, and she is fully estranged from her older sister—the perfect daughter—who still lives at home and always disapproved of her husband. So when did the trouble begin? And where will she go from here?
When she was a child, an astrologer in India told her parents that the family would die in water. Ever since, they’ve avoided pools and lakes and the ocean; no one ever learned to swim. From the Booker finalist and beloved author of Burnt Sugar comes a brilliant story of betrayal, renunciation, and renewal, of a woman spiraling who swims to the other side and comes up for air.
- GenresFiction
Kindle Edition
Expected publication November 10, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 12, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of The First House in exchange for my honest review.
‘The luckiest women were the ones who were forgotten. They were the ones who made it out alive. I had a chance to be one of them, forgotten, past her prime, beyond the age of desire. My life would begin today.’
The main themes of The First House could be described as reflection, the quiet demise of marriage, finding yourself after marriage and children. The book opens with a husband telling his wife he wants a divorce. What ensues is a story about the emotional aftermath from the wife’s perspective. She reflects on earlier memories of her husband and herself. There are also glimpses of her family dynamic giving the reader a little idea of what the FMC childhood was like.
The story starts off at a steady pace, but towards the middle of the book the pace starts to slow down. Sometimes I also did not realize I was reading about a flashback until halfway through the flashback.
I do not feel that I was the intended audience for this book, but I found bits and pieces of the FMC that I could relate to. This story is for recent divorcees. This story is for mothers who feel lost in motherhood. This story is for those who want to find themselves again. Overall I think the story was beautifully written.
‘The luckiest women were the ones who were forgotten. They were the ones who made it out alive. I had a chance to be one of them, forgotten, past her prime, beyond the age of desire. My life would begin today.’
The main themes of The First House could be described as reflection, the quiet demise of marriage, finding yourself after marriage and children. The book opens with a husband telling his wife he wants a divorce. What ensues is a story about the emotional aftermath from the wife’s perspective. She reflects on earlier memories of her husband and herself. There are also glimpses of her family dynamic giving the reader a little idea of what the FMC childhood was like.
The story starts off at a steady pace, but towards the middle of the book the pace starts to slow down. Sometimes I also did not realize I was reading about a flashback until halfway through the flashback.
I do not feel that I was the intended audience for this book, but I found bits and pieces of the FMC that I could relate to. This story is for recent divorcees. This story is for mothers who feel lost in motherhood. This story is for those who want to find themselves again. Overall I think the story was beautifully written.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
But the knowledge still seeped in. It was all around me. It whispered when I was alone. It circled around the birth charts and conjured Diana in the garden. It narrated my dreams. Still, I did not trust a knowledge I could not name. I ignored that knowing and abandoned my body, which was seeking revelation. Over time, my body became a relic and its speech became a dead language. A silent object in a museum that other people ’s voices collided against. A statue turning in the wind, one way, and then the other, always at the mercy and pleasure of another.
Avni Doshi’s debut novel “Burnt Sugar” (“White Cotton” on its earlier release in India) was shortlisted for the rather left-field 2020 Booker longlist, and of four books at the intersection of the three dominant descriptors of that list which featured (per the Booker’s own website) 9 US based (albeit this author has subsequently moved to Dubai), 9 female and 8 debutant novelists.
An at times humorous, almost voyeuristically uncomfortable examination of a difficult mother-daughter relationship, it wove a range of themes across a relatively simple narrative, such as memories (and common memories), who gets to tell family stories, belonging/exclusion, obsession, art history/life – being itself something of palimpsest art project – if anything trying too much thematically and in terms of ideas and references.
The author acknowledged the literary influences of Jenny Offill, Sheila Heti and Rachel Cusk – I saw a touch of Eileen Moshfegh and a strong comparison to Ariana Harwicz.
And there is much similar in this her second novel – and this time the publishers mention with some accuracy Deborah Levy (especially with some of the opening imagery) and Gwendoline Riley (I would say there though that as well as a Riley’s first party narrator with dysfunctional parents especially mother, here the narrator is a dysfunctional mother herself) – and I would add Rachel Cusk with the links to the gaze of male artists on women.
The novel opens with an image of the narrator – an American based, Indian-descended novelist - being beheaded by her office-worker husband when he come into the bedroom of their suburban family house (where they live with their two young daughters) in what I think must be 2024, to declare their thirteen year marriage at an end.
And really the first part of the book is the narrator largely failing to come to terms with the news as she looks back across her marriage and what was clearly always a difficult relationship, with the second part perhaps more focused on her relationships with her dominant father, mother and her elder sister who lives with them.
And that, returning to her debut, is the superficially simple narrative around which the author weaves both her often forensic prose (again with the same mix of black humour and discomforting revelation) and her myriad (albeit more controlled than before) of ideas and themes.
One key recurring idea is of the cicadas – which this year are emerging from both their 13 and 17 year cycles, the third year relating of course to the duration of the narrator’s marriage (her wedding day being literally overshadowed by a cicada infestation) and the simultaneous, once-every-221-years emergence of both broods giving me my 2024 identification. But around this we learn much more of the cicadas lives in a way which I would say is linked implicitly to the narrator’s life.
A statue of (the goddess) Diana by the sculptor Saint-Gaudens and its use by the architect Stanford White also features – in the early writing career of the narrator, in her next door neighbour’s garden, in her dream and related episodes and mediations recur in the book – with some more explicit (than with cicada) but equally well done links made to the narrator’s circumstances.
Water is another constant theme – the narrator’s inability swim, and general hopelessness around water at first seems part of her realisation that she has allowed herself to be absorbed into a marriage in such a way that her husband’s decision to break it off leaves her literally helpless (she is also unable to drive and has no bank account) but turns out to be also related to an astrological prediction that lead to a familial hydrophobia – and water even provides the novel’s closing image.
But as the last two both might imply this is a book which also examines (possibly centres – including in the astrologically-linked title and a brief Anne Carson epigraph “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing”) wider mythological themes taking in the Greek gods, Hindi deities and astrology (both Vedic and Western). And I would say I have: conditional interest in the first (far more interested in the heroes than the gods – in complete opposition to the interest here); little to no interest in the second; and active disdain/hostility for the third.
In almost its opening lines when her husband explains his inability to anymore ignore his aversion to the concept of marriage having seen to many unhappy couples, he finishes with “to ask him to believe in an institution that he had no faith in, well that was asking him to believe in someone else’s god” – and I felt the same about these aspects of what is otherwise an excellent novel.
My thanks to Hamish Hamilton for an ARC via NetGalley
The patterns within these ritals and myths always led me back to my own experience, revealing something I had never been able to grasp at the centre of myself. They offered me a way of moving around it, writing around it, glancing only through the corners of my eyes, and I could almost trace its shape, almost feel the vibration of its surface. Sometimes it seemed to whisper to me and I had a feeling that the thing I was circling was circling me, too. Sometimes I noticed the cold shadow on my skin, and I knew I was getting closer.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
What I had believed to be indestructible was gone. The way I had engaged with the world was no longer possible. The children came into the room, already in their pyjamas, and caught me talking to myself. They couldn't understand that I was meeting myself as someone new.
The breakdown of a marriage - complete with toxic husband - continues to prove to be inspirational fictional material in this book which follows nicely from prior incarnations such as The Days of Abandonment, Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation and Liars.
Doshi's precision-prose and willingness to delve into all that is uncomfortable about close relationships - which was so well displayed in her Burnt Sugar - charts troubled territory again as a husband disposes of a fifteen year marriage in a few stark sentences with which this book opens. Issues of power, money, imbalances in domestic work, all that is unsaid and uncommunicated are depicted with a brutal meticulousness as our narrator navigates unknown territory. Her willingness to accommodate her husband are offset by outbursts that show us just how disorientated she is, left alone with two young daughters and only precarious access to money.
But this is more than just a marriage breakdown book: Doshi also peels back the skin of the narrator's family and her troubled natal relationships with each parent and her sister. The light touch narration is astonishingly economic as we pierce to the heart of this family with so little exposition.
Where Doshi's craft really comes into its own is through the use of mythology and imagery - moving between classical and Indian myths as well as various forms of astrology and augury to reflect and reveal the narrator's own dilemmas and path to emergence into a future.
For me, this is a book all about the voice: I clicked with it immediately and was willing to follow where it led. Acute, emotive without being sentimental, textured and smart, I loved every careful sentence of this novel.
Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The First House is kind of a book about heartbreak and it's also kind of a book about relief. I felt the narrator viscerally, as I think almost anyone who has experienced significant loss would be able to!
The narrator's husband wants out of the relationship. He says this plainly and it comes as a surprise. The impact is swift (a quote that I loved - "When my husband comes into the bedroom we have shared for thirteen years and tells me he doesn’t want to be married anymore, I reach for my neck. My head is missing.") and though many things stay the same throughout the rest of the book (she never moves, she still parents her children, she still wanders into familiar crevices of her mind, she still interacts with her neighbors) the atmosphere is off kilter. The woman's life thins out and the days blur together. In this book, time is not anchored, which I think is one of the most powerful tools. The disassociation of the narrator highly relatable.
Ultimately, it felt like the narrator did not like her husband, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. As a reader, I didn't like him either! I felt the immaturity of his decisions and how flippantly so much responsibility was left to her. I also felt promise for her, even if in most of the text, she didn't feel the promise for herself. It felt clear to me that on the other side of this ill fitted coupling, was the woman's whole life.
The book doesn’t try for redemption until the very final pages, which I appreciated. Recovery from an unexpected betrayal takes a long time, if not forever. The first days and months are forensic and The First House showed this perfectly.
The narrator's husband wants out of the relationship. He says this plainly and it comes as a surprise. The impact is swift (a quote that I loved - "When my husband comes into the bedroom we have shared for thirteen years and tells me he doesn’t want to be married anymore, I reach for my neck. My head is missing.") and though many things stay the same throughout the rest of the book (she never moves, she still parents her children, she still wanders into familiar crevices of her mind, she still interacts with her neighbors) the atmosphere is off kilter. The woman's life thins out and the days blur together. In this book, time is not anchored, which I think is one of the most powerful tools. The disassociation of the narrator highly relatable.
Ultimately, it felt like the narrator did not like her husband, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. As a reader, I didn't like him either! I felt the immaturity of his decisions and how flippantly so much responsibility was left to her. I also felt promise for her, even if in most of the text, she didn't feel the promise for herself. It felt clear to me that on the other side of this ill fitted coupling, was the woman's whole life.
The book doesn’t try for redemption until the very final pages, which I appreciated. Recovery from an unexpected betrayal takes a long time, if not forever. The first days and months are forensic and The First House showed this perfectly.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The book follows a female narrator, an American woman of Indian descent whose husband leaves her after more than ten years of marriage and two children. The story focuses on her inner life as her external world unravels and she tries to understand what caused the breakup. Along the way, we learn about her daughters, how she met her husband, her quirky parents and sister, and her own unconventional personality.
What works is the ambiguity around blame. The narrator comes across as at least mildly depressed, with little that sustains or brings her joy. The husband appears as someone who has had enough, but also as someone who may never have been fully committed, having entered the relationship for the wrong reasons and sustained it with half-truths.
What does not work is the banality of the story. The premise feels overused, and I struggled to see a clear purpose. There is nothing new to distinguish it: a woman with emotional issues enters a relationship too quickly; they marry without truly knowing each other; have children in the hope of fixing things; make each other unhappy; he leaves; she struggles, having neglected her own growth; the outcome feels inevitable. The book is not bad, but it feels unnecessary.
On a smaller note, the astrology references detracted from the experience. They are a personal irritant and made it harder to take the characters seriously. The book would be slightly stronger without them.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
What works is the ambiguity around blame. The narrator comes across as at least mildly depressed, with little that sustains or brings her joy. The husband appears as someone who has had enough, but also as someone who may never have been fully committed, having entered the relationship for the wrong reasons and sustained it with half-truths.
What does not work is the banality of the story. The premise feels overused, and I struggled to see a clear purpose. There is nothing new to distinguish it: a woman with emotional issues enters a relationship too quickly; they marry without truly knowing each other; have children in the hope of fixing things; make each other unhappy; he leaves; she struggles, having neglected her own growth; the outcome feels inevitable. The book is not bad, but it feels unnecessary.
On a smaller note, the astrology references detracted from the experience. They are a personal irritant and made it harder to take the characters seriously. The book would be slightly stronger without them.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A sharp, unsettling novel about the stories people tell themselves in order to keep going. A husband announces he wants out, and from there Avni Doshi turns what might have been a familiar domestic collapse into something stranger, darker and far more interesting.
She writes very well about self-deception: how people edit their own histories, disguise their motives, and hide parts of themselves from the people closest to them. Nobody here is entirely reliable, perhaps least of all when speaking to themselves. Doshi handles that with a deft touch and never labours the point.
I also enjoyed learning about cicadas, whose strange life cycle becomes a fitting thread running through the book. They emerge at just the right moments, carrying ideas of waiting, transformation and buried things returning.
The tone is uneasy, intelligent and controlled, with flashes of the surreal that lift it above standard marriage-in-crisis fiction. It is a novel that trusts the reader to keep up.
I could easily see this making the Booker longlist. It has that combination of formal confidence, psychological interest and distinctiveness judges tend to notice. A thoughtful, quietly disquieting read.
She writes very well about self-deception: how people edit their own histories, disguise their motives, and hide parts of themselves from the people closest to them. Nobody here is entirely reliable, perhaps least of all when speaking to themselves. Doshi handles that with a deft touch and never labours the point.
I also enjoyed learning about cicadas, whose strange life cycle becomes a fitting thread running through the book. They emerge at just the right moments, carrying ideas of waiting, transformation and buried things returning.
The tone is uneasy, intelligent and controlled, with flashes of the surreal that lift it above standard marriage-in-crisis fiction. It is a novel that trusts the reader to keep up.
I could easily see this making the Booker longlist. It has that combination of formal confidence, psychological interest and distinctiveness judges tend to notice. A thoughtful, quietly disquieting read.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The First House opens with a husband asking to leave his marriage and follows the emotional fallout from that moment. It’s a very introspective look at identity, motherhood, and the slow unraveling of a relationship.
I appreciated how accurately it captured the quiet shifts in a marriage—how routine replaces connection and how easy it is to lose yourself, especially after having children. The themes of financial imbalance, emotional distance, and grief felt realistic and, at times, relatable.
That said, the pacing slows midway, and the story becomes very internal and abstract. While there were strong moments, I struggled to stay fully engaged, and the narrator felt somewhat passive.
Overall, a thoughtful, character-driven read that didn’t fully connect with me but will likely resonate with readers who enjoy slower literary fiction.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I appreciated how accurately it captured the quiet shifts in a marriage—how routine replaces connection and how easy it is to lose yourself, especially after having children. The themes of financial imbalance, emotional distance, and grief felt realistic and, at times, relatable.
That said, the pacing slows midway, and the story becomes very internal and abstract. While there were strong moments, I struggled to stay fully engaged, and the narrator felt somewhat passive.
Overall, a thoughtful, character-driven read that didn’t fully connect with me but will likely resonate with readers who enjoy slower literary fiction.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
"The First House" follows a women who deals with the sudden news that her husband has decided he no longer wants to be with her. The story is a snapshot into their lives during this period of uncertainty of what the future holds for the couple and the two children they share.
I can see why this author is appealing - her prose is beautiful and she curated a really interesting family dynamic with these characters. With that being said, I just don't think the writing resonated with me as much as it could have; I wasn't drawn to any of the characters and I think the story was so specific that it just didn't interest me in the moment.
This would be perfect for those who like literary fiction, unraveling odd family dynamics and a lot of references to astrology and mythology.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
I can see why this author is appealing - her prose is beautiful and she curated a really interesting family dynamic with these characters. With that being said, I just don't think the writing resonated with me as much as it could have; I wasn't drawn to any of the characters and I think the story was so specific that it just didn't interest me in the moment.
This would be perfect for those who like literary fiction, unraveling odd family dynamics and a lot of references to astrology and mythology.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
April 19, 2026
An exploration of how others can shape who we are and hide our true identities from even ourselves.
It opens with her husband announcing he is leaving her, which is a shock, but then she cycles through the emotions following the loss and starts to understand how he has made her smaller.
We also see how her family, in a more well intentioned we’ll have also limited her. Both her parents and her sister have left very different marks which takes her a while to understand.
This is brought cleverly together by the regular invoking of cicadas, two kinds of which appear after long cycles, with both coinciding for this story, a rare event showing how hard it can be to break free of negative family and marital bounds at the same time.
The writing is wonderful, and like with burnt sugar there are busy as l metaphors that I’ll carry with me.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the arc
It opens with her husband announcing he is leaving her, which is a shock, but then she cycles through the emotions following the loss and starts to understand how he has made her smaller.
We also see how her family, in a more well intentioned we’ll have also limited her. Both her parents and her sister have left very different marks which takes her a while to understand.
This is brought cleverly together by the regular invoking of cicadas, two kinds of which appear after long cycles, with both coinciding for this story, a rare event showing how hard it can be to break free of negative family and marital bounds at the same time.
The writing is wonderful, and like with burnt sugar there are busy as l metaphors that I’ll carry with me.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the arc
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
ARC via NetGalley
This hooked me from the start. Part journal, part novel, this felt like such a raw reflection of real life after divorce with cultural complexity layered on top. I read this very quickly bc I felt the narrator was a friend, and I wanted to see her get through this. Pick this one up!!!
This hooked me from the start. Part journal, part novel, this felt like such a raw reflection of real life after divorce with cultural complexity layered on top. I read this very quickly bc I felt the narrator was a friend, and I wanted to see her get through this. Pick this one up!!!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
this was sooooo good!! so well written!! absolutely incredible. I tore through it. loved the ferrante-esque anger and craziness and the nutjob family. and all the passages about art, astrology, and myths. just fabulous. thank you netgalley and publishers for the ARC.
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