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. As her whole plan spirals into a spectacle, she embarks on a journey to decide what feat her suitor must perform to be worthy of her wrinkling hand.

Dr. Oliver Harding, a tenured professor of English, is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet, staid life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani Muslim law professor. Ruhaba unexpectedly ignites Oliver’s long-dormant passions, a secret desire that quickly tips towards obsession after her teenaged nephew, Adil Alam, arrives from France to stay with her. Drawn to them, Oliver tries to reconcile his discomfort with the worlds from which they come, and to quiet his sense of dismay at the encroaching change they represent. After protests break out demanding diversity across the university, Oliver finds himself and his beliefs under fire, even as his past reveals a picture more complicated than it seems.