<p><b>Shortlisted, George Bugnet Award for Fiction</b></p><p><i>Kalila</i> chronicles the lives of Maggie and Brodie, whose joy collides with devastation when their daughter&#39;s birth also heralds the news of her congenital heart condition.In this startlingly inventive novel, Rosemary Nixon braids light and darkness into a narrative chain pulled exquisitely taut. Through Maggie and Brodie&#39;s shifting viewpoints, the isolating impenetrability of hospital life, the mediation of physics, music, and family, Nixon propels the reader into unmapped emotional terrain where a shell-shocked family grapples with the horror, joy, and mystery of impermanence. The result is a spellbinding tale, provocative for the emotions and the intellect. </p>