Although the ending is climactic and jarring, it provides both resolve and clarity.” Conflicts abound in the novel, but Sindu reveals which one held the most weight in the final sentence. On a linear timeline, Blue-Skinned Gods doesn’t end at the end the end is tucked somewhere near the beginning. Every oddity has an explanation, and societal issues left unaddressed in childhood come back around for an older, wiser Kalki to consider. “Sindu’s applied cultural knowledge and careful character-building makes each surprise believable without being predictable.

In attending to the fine aftershocks of this loss and many others to come, Sindu masterfully renders how our environments bake into our skin.” It is impossible not to be hypnotized by the tenderness of these opening scenes. But relatively early in the novel Kalki, narrating in adulthood as a university lecturer in Toronto, breaks the illusion of his own divinity - and any illusion that his childhood had been blessed. Raised to believe he is the '10th incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu,' he heals the sick at his family’s ashram in Tamil Nadu, India. “Kalki’s life as a blue-skinned child deity at first seems rather romantic. Shortlisted for the 2022 Lammy Award in Bisexual FictionĪn Autostraddle Best Queer Book of the Year Traveling from India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and spans continents and faiths, in an expansive and heartfelt look at the need for belief in our globally interconnected world.Ī Winter 2023 Indie Next Reading Group Selection Over the next decade, his family unravels, and every relationship he relied on-father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin-starts falling apart. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. From the award-winning author of Marriage of a Thousand Lies comes a brilliantly written, globe-spanning novel about identity, faith, family, and sexuality.

Blue-Skinned Gods by S.J. Sindu