"A thing of beauty. . . . You must read it."--Nadeem Aslam

"A shower of pleasures."--Julia O'Faolain

"Sophisticated, cosmopolitan and seductive, the novel engages mind and senses alike."--Andre Naffis-Sahely, The Times Literary Supplement

Like his parents, he too spent many hours sending cloud messages to other places, messages of longing for something that he knew existed otherwhere.

London, that distant rainy place his father lived in once, is where Mehran finds himself after leaving Karachi in his teens. And it is there that his adult life unfolds:...