A Novel

Winner of the 2002 Pacific Northwest Book Award, Himalayan Dhaba leads the reader through the mountains of India with a lyric and compelling prose, an authentic sense of place, and a story that won't be forgotten.

Following her late husband's ghost to a town high in the Indian Himalayas, Doctor Mary stumbles into an abandoned mission hospital. Caught between her recent grief and the hopeless care of a dying baby girl, she begins a year long odyssey of descent and redemption that connects her with a cast of unexpected characters.

There is Amod, the waiter in the local dhaba, who secretly adores and watches out for the doctor. Phillip is a young and lonely British traveller who momentarily lands in the doctor's care before he is kidnapped deep into the snowbound Himalayan interior. Antone is the aging heroin-addicted kidnapper whose every plan goes sour. And finally, there is Meena-- abandoned by her family to serve the abusive men of an isolated road crew-- who finds the hidden strength and courage to lead herself and young Phillip to their ultimate salvation in the care of a hashish smoking holly man.

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