All our Broken Idols (Paul M.M. Cooper) - Grief travels over Time

All Our Broken Idols travels between lives lived centuries apart with an ease i am almost jealous of. Aurya and Katya live parallel lives in the book, each struggling with the past, present and future. They are young women centuries apart, yet Aurya's loss of her mother echoes in Katya's grief for her father.

Aurya and her brother Sharo find refuge with King Ashurbanipal's entourage and escape from the past in their village only to get into an entangled future in Nineveh. Sharo's gift is also his bane - his mind absorbs every single detail and reproduces it on whatever surface available to him. Aurya knows her mother through him, through his stories and by just holding her mother's locket in her hands. All she wants is to find her mother in Nineveh. Sharo is lost in his world of stories, drawing and sculpture but wants to protect his sister from the bitter truth of her life. Then there is Katya, who waits for her father and hopes to find him in Mosul. She joins an archaeological dig in Mosul and makes the find of a lifetime but the city falls to the ISIL before she can show it to the world - something that will give the world a new understanding of history.

In another era, the brother sister duo of Aurya and Sharo try to make sense of the world and come to terms with their world falling apart due to greed and cruelty. Centuries later, Katya and Salim get caught in a besieged city that is falling apart for the same greed and cruelty. Across the two ages, the river flows with equanimity, always there for the River Girl to find refuge in- while much changes, much also remains the same.

Two promises stand out in the tale. Aurya leaves her precious locket with Sharo and he promises to give it back to her when they meet again. Salim promises never to stop looking for Katya in case they get separated. Sharo fulfills his promise, a few thousand years later. Does Salim fulfill his too? We'll never know.

Its a book with few characters, each etched so well that they haunt you much after you have read the book. Katya and Aurya will stay with me for a long time to come. Read it to know loss and longing across ages.

You can buy the paperback edition at: https://www.amazon.in/Broken-Idols-Paul-M-M-Cooper/dp/1408879352/ref=monarch_sidesheet  (Support indie book stores if possible though)