More than a decade in the writing, ABRAHAM VERGHESE’s second novel spans the years 1900 to 1977. It is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, where it follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and a testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Join Verghese—a deeply admired author and a physician with a reputation for his focus on healing at a time when technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine—for a talk about his new book, his life, and his work.