India, Sept. 27 -- Towards the end of Kiran Desai's Booker-longlisted The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny - her first work of fiction in two decades - Babita, mother of one of the titular characters, Sunny Bhatia, says to Sonia Shah: "It's a huge subject; you can't keep a huge subject neat." Babita is referring to Sonia's article on kebabs in Kala magazine but, of course, there is a subliminal connotation. It is as though the novelist is asking: When you set out to properly tell a story, doesn't it become an all-encompassing one?

The 670-page novel begins in a rented bungalow in Allahabad, where Sonia's grandparents, Ba and Dadaji, live with her paternal aunt, Mina Foi, whose 55th birthday is about to be celebrated. Foi, whose marriage las...