Against Gravity

Houston, during the mid-1980s, is the setting for this novel about three people whose paths eventually cross. Madison Kirby is a bitter intellectual who is dying. Ric Cardinal works as a social worker devoted to helping others, yet he is haunted by a son he was unable to save. Roya is an Iranian immigrant who has spent years moving through war-torn Middle Eastern countries before reaching Texas, where she struggles to build a fragile existence for herself and her daughter.

Each character narrates their own life in turn. As their accounts overlap, a shared history of hardship and grief takes shape, showing how their separate burdens connect.

The novel is written in a layered, structurally complex style and is aimed at adult readers who enjoy literary fiction about migration, illness, guilt and the search for stability.