Note from author: Submitted to and accepted rep from Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger Literary Agency; published by Grand Central Publishing with the title Dava Shastri’s Last Day)
Dear Ms. Somberg,
Dava Shastri, one of the world’s wealthiest women, always lives her life with her legacy in mind. What will the world say about her when she’s gone? After she’s diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age seventy, she takes drastic measures to find out.
Dava summons her four adult children and their families to her private island compound to disclose shocking news. Not just that she has a terminal illness and will end her life very soon. But she admits she let news of her death break early so she can read her obituaries.
As a billionaire who dedicated her global foundation to women’s empowerment, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her “death” inadvertently exposes the two secrets she has spent a lifetime guarding from everyone, even her beloved late husband.
And now the whole world knows, including her children. They aren’t completely shocked by the news of her affair with a singer-songwriter. After all, he had titled his Oscar-winning song after her. But the other secret—a child Dava gave up for adoption and befriended thirty years later without revealing that she’s her mother—upends everything they thought they knew about their ambitious, slightly remote mother, changing their relationship with her and each other.
In THE MATRIARCH, Dava must come to terms with the decisions that irrevocably altered her life and make peace with her family in the limited time she has left.
The novel blends Succession‘s uber-wealthy dysfunctional dynamics with The Farewell‘s bittersweet examination of mortality and familial grief. Complete at 107,000 words, this multi-generational family saga will appeal to fans of Claire Lombardo’s The Most Fun We Ever Had and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest.
As a former entertainment reporter for Newsday and the New York Daily News, I have written my fair share of stories about the lives (and deaths) of the rich and famous. I have a master’s degree in creative writing from Emerson College, and have been published in high-profile publications including The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly and The Atlantic.
I read an interview in which you stated you were seeking novels that explore the complexities of families, so I hope my book will be of interest to you. Per your submission guidelines, I am enclosing the first five pages in this email. Thanks for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kirthana Ramisetti