twelve linked stories, the characters in The Lovers and the Leavers intersect and drift apart across several years and continents. Komola, a maid in a quiet mansion in Dhaka, begins a doomed relationship with a handsome, mysterious man. Her nephew, a gifted little boy in her village, nurses a terrible secret, and his mother flees, ending up by the sea in Chennai. At the other end of the world, a Bangladeshi-American woman, Rox, lusts after a teenager, while her best friend, the rebellious Ila, must choose between love and tradition. Artfully woven with poems and photographs, these stories move between India, Bangladesh, America and Europe.