Skin Over Milk (Chestnut Review Chapbooks)

By Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar

Praise for Skin Over Milk Skin Over Milk tells the story of young Chutki and her two sisters who bear the weight of being unwanted daughters in 1990's India. Told through Chutki's eyes, we feel the innocence that is childhood, allowing the gratitude for a crust of bread thrown away by her brothers, or the simple joy in making prank phone calls. We meet characters, such as the father who curses their mother for giving him useless girls, the brothers who don't seem to appreciate the luxury of education. But we also meet the loving grandfather, Dada, who will die and watch over them like a star in the sky and their beautiful, beautiful mother, Ammi, who does what she can to make all of their lives bearable. Exquisitely written with a jeweler's eye for detail, the deftest of hands with characterization and storytelling, this is a brilliant and unforgettable read. Francine Witte, author of Dressed All Wrong for This and The Way of the Wind "The summer of 1990 brought rain and more rain to our little town of Muzaffarnagar." Thus begins Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar's chapbook, Skin Over Milk , an elegantly written and immersive family story told over the course of twelve short chapters and through the collective point of view of the family's siblings. We readers get a strong sense of this particular family's joys and heartaches, struggles and traditions. Chansarkar knows how to weave her stories seamlessly and disarmingly, with heart and humor and tenderness. It is a testament to this writer's mastery that I never wanted the story to end. Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works With precision and insight, these evocative stories within a story speak of rain and tears, of sisterhood and solidarity, of poverty, and growing up as girls under the lashes of patriarchy. Chansarkar evokes the poetry and brutality of small-town India with a deftness that makes it impossible to tell which is which. Damyanti Biswas, author of You Beneath Your Skin and The Blue Bar In lush and incisive prose, Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar tells the story of three sisters growing up in a home and a culture that treats them as valueless, who nonetheless scheme and dream to claim space: "I sat squished between my sisters, dreaming of a seat of my own someday." Like the secret a mother whispers in the ear of her crying baby girl to protect her from her husband's rage, Skin Over Milk is confiding, talismanic. By turns painful and joyful, this novella transfixed me. Kim Magowan, author of Undoing, The Light Source, and How Far I've Come About the Author Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. Born to a middle-class family in India, she later migrated to the USA with her husband and son. She currently lives in the suburbs of Ohio. She is a technologist by profession and a writer by passion. Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications, print and online. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2022. She won first place in ELJ Micro Creative Non-Fiction Prize , placed in the Strands International Flash Fiction Festival , and is the runner-up for the Chestnut Review Chapbook Contest . Her stories have been shortlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards and SmokeLong Micro Competition . She is currently a Prose Editor at Janus Literary and a Submissions Editor at SmokeLong Quarterly . Her debut flash fiction collection Morsels of Purple was released in 2021. More at https://saraspunyfingers.com. Reach her @PunyFingers

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0B4FV35VG
• ISBN13: 9798834961567
• Release Date: June 2022
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 59 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"