The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar is the selection for the Tuesday, March 23 meeting of the Bergen County YJCC’s Book Discussion Club. The meeting, facilitated by Sharry Friedberg, begins at 7:30 p.m. at the YJCC.

The Space Between Us is the story of Bhima, a domestic servant in contemporary Bombay, who leaves her own small shanty in the slums each morning to tend to another woman's house. In Sera Dubash's home, Bhima cleans furniture she is not permitted to sit on. She washes glasses from which she is not allowed to drink. Yet despite being separated from each other by blood and class, she and Sera find themselves bound by gender and shared life experiences.

Poignant and compelling, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India and witnessed through two compelling and achingly real women, the novel shows how the lives of the rich and the poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and vividly captures how the bonds of womanhood are pitted against the divisions of class and culture. The New York Times Book Review calls author Umrigar “a perceptive and often piercing writer." Book discussion group meetings are free for YJCC members; $5 for the general public. For more information, contact Jill Brown, (201) 666-6610, ext. 222 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it