Varanasi, India 1998
Micah Connerly built his life on his mother’s lie. Once exposed, 32-year-old Micah hawks everything but his Harley to go to India to get the truth from Raj, the guru stepfather who abandoned Micah as a boy.
On his way to confront a Varanasi priest who lied about knowing Raj, Micah rescues an injured man in an act that could cost him his life. Unmoved by Micah’s heroism, the priest still refuses to help, claiming the truth could destroy both Micah and Raj.
Determined to keep pushing the priest for Raj’s whereabouts, Micah strikes a deal to work at a Varanasi hospice with three other Western volunteers in exchange for medical treatment. When his escalating feud with a local thug threatens his new friends, Micah risks everything to help and ends up discovering Raj’s supposed location.
Unsure if the clue is real or a trap, Micah must decide if he’s willing to endanger Raj, and himself, to find answers.
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The Story Behind God in Drag
I’ve traveled through books since I learned how to read. As a child, I loved to pull out a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, find an exotic locale, and imagine what life would be like if I lived there. I had an ongoing fantasy about living with a caravan of Bedouin nomads, but the closest I got was a camel ride at the edge of the Sahara with a guide who claimed to be Bedouin.
In 1994-95, during an eight-month trek around India, Sri Lanka & Nepal, my husband and I volunteered for six weeks at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta.
It was among the toughest six weeks of my life mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The work was grueling and the heat intense, but it was the peaceful acquiescence to the pain, suffering, and impending death by the vast majority of the patients that made the most impact on me.
The members of the Missionaries of Charity who dedicated their entire lives to this work were some of the most loving and humble people I’ve ever met. A close second was the long-term volunteers from around the world who served the poor, sick, and dying for months and even years.
It was probably as a self-preservation strategy to distract myself from the work there that I began to imagine “what if…?” and sketched the outline of what eventually became this novel. I transplanted the setting to Varanasi because the narrow alleyways of the Old City and the ghat culture contained Micah in a way that the overwhelming sprawl of Calcutta never could.
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God in Drag sparks debate. Whether your book group, friend circle, or yoga studio likes to chat about books over a glass of wine, a bottle of skunky Indian beer, or a steaming cup of chai, I’d love to join you with a virtual author visit!
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