Image: Madhu Kapparath T he characters in Sleeping on Jupiter are like ghosts. They are persistent in their haunting and linger long after you read the final line of the novel. Even their creator Anuradha Roy does not quite know their future but, she tells ForbesLife India , imagining their fate, the ‘what ifs’ of their lives, is a “pleasant private parlour game”. Longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Sleeping on Jupiter is Roy’s third novel. It is set in Jarmuli, a fictional temple town by the sea, where, over the span of five days, the lives of the protagonist Nomi, three elderly friends, a poetry-spouting tea vendor and his assistant, a temple guide and a fixer collide. The impact is not pretty, especially because Roy reveals how relationships can turn violent. In a narrative which, much like the sea, alternates from gentle to choppy, Roy writes about faith, religion, rape, abuse, old age and homosexuality. At the centre of the story is Nomi, who