In this follow-up to the critically-acclaimed The Laughter —winner of the Washington State Book
Award—a middle-aged woman starts a firestorm when she holds a contest based on an ancient
Indian ritual in which men must compete to win her affections. A woman who has left two
husbands announces she will celebrate her 55th birthday by holding a swayamvar. Drawn from an
ancient custom in her Indian culture this is an event in which suitors line up to compete in a
feat of wills and strength to win a beautiful princess’s hand in marriage. The woman a
renowned and respected intellectual in an American town who had once declared she was “past
such petty matters as love ” knows she is now setting herself up for widespread societal
ridicule but her self-esteem and sexual libido are off the charts even as her body withers
from disability fading beauty and her appetite for cake. To her surprise a cast of
characters shows up to support her call—a wedding planner looking for the next enchanting thing
a disability rights activist making a documentary film and even begrudgingly her own young
adult son. The Men's Rights Movement protests her project angry at her objectification of men.
She is waylaid by visitations from goddesses and princesses past who either try to slap sense
into her or cheer her on. She must also reckon with a brutal love story in her ancestry that
was endangered by the caste system—a story that placed a generational curse on those in the
family who show an intemperance of spirit. As her whole plan spirals into a spectacle the
woman embarks on a journey to decide what feat her suitor must perform to be worthy of her
wrinkling hand. What feat will define a newer better masculinity? What feat will it take for
her to trust in the tenderness of love? Intemperance is at once a satirical feminist folktale
and a meditation on how we might reach past all sense and still find love.
