Following 2021’s GOLD DIGGERS, Sanjena Sathian’s second novel opens with its protagonist, Sanjana Satyananda, in a state of in-betweenness. Things had fallen apart with her husband, Killian, several months earlier, so she left Goa and returned to New York City. To save money, she has moved out of her apartment and is caroming between her best friend Lia’s place in Brooklyn and her sister Maneesha’s in New Haven. She’s just trying to make do for a few months until she can start claiming her meager academic stipend in the fall. She’s a graduate student in anthropology at Yale, though she may or may not be continuing in the program after the main subject of her research died.

Unfortunately, Sanjana doesn’t exactly feel welcome at either Lia’s or Maneesha’s. Lia and her husband, Gor, are expecting their first child. Although Lia claims to eschew all the trappings of modern motherhood, it’s true that they’re going to need to convert the spare room into a nursery soon. Meanwhile, Maneesha is high-strung and high-achieving, which is everything Sanjana is not. She gladly accepts Sanjana’s offer to dog sit the family pet, Beef Jerky (who has his own Instagram account), while Maneesha, her husband and her daughter go on an extended vacation. But she rescinds the arrangement when the nanny cam catches Sanjana having sex in the house.

"[T]he novel...prompts reflection about varying paths toward (or away from) motherhood, about different versions of the self, and about the choices we all make as we mature. GODDESS COMPLEX is a memorable trip."

Sanjana just wants to finalize her divorce from Killian so that she can move on with her life in at least one way, but he’s been ghosting her for months. Then she starts getting mysterious text messages from Indian acquaintances and total strangers, congratulating her on her pregnancy and sharing photos of Killian with someone who appears (at least at first glance) to be her. Sanjana, who had an abortion shortly after returning to the States, is both perplexed and unsettled by this doppelganger, who seems to be living an alternate version of her life.

Up until this point, GODDESS COMPLEX might seem like straightforward autofiction, especially given the similarities of the protagonist’s name to the author’s. But this is where things start to get bizarre. At Lia’s completely over-the-top baby shower (guests wear custom masks printed with Lia’s face and labeled “Mommy-Boss”), one guest mistakes Sanjana for her doppelganger, who is named Sanjena Sathian.

Convinced that the only way she can get Killian to grant her a divorce is to return to India (where Killian, an actor who claims to be part Indian, is trying to break into Bollywood with limited success), Sanjana does exactly that. At the airport, she encounters a driver with a sign labeled (you guessed it) “Sanjena Sathian.” Figuring that things can’t get much stranger, Sanjana accepts the ride --- and eventually lands at an isolated compound outside the city, just as an intense monsoon rainstorm is bearing down. More than a little freaked out, she embarks on a midnight walk around the property to try to get her bearings --- only to fall and hit her head, destroying her phone in the process. As she recovers from the concussion, she learns that all the roads have been washed out, and she has no choice but to stay at the compound, a sort of fertility clinic and wellness center.

At the compound is Sanjena Suthian herself, who agrees to go by “Sunny” to avoid confusion. She’s something of a guru who “specializes in helping people visualize their ideal situations, and then she goes about helping to make those families a reality.” Sanjana is alternately repulsed and fascinated by her double, especially when Sunny engages her in a therapeutic “mirroring” practice that seems to break down the barriers between their identities to an alarming degree. But many mysteries remain. Where is Killian, now apparently known as Kalyan? Why do so many people trust Sunny? Is she actually pregnant, or is something else going on?

The novel’s second half is like a house of funhouse mirrors (almost literally), with the reader’s disorientation mirroring Sanjana’s own. This section is mysterious, unsettling and more than a little confusing, almost resembling a dream or a nightmare. Readers --- along with Sanjana --- will start to wonder about the differences between reality and vision, not to mention between these two similar-looking but hardly identical women. When all does become clear (sort of), the resolution comes perhaps a little too swiftly, again almost feeling like whiplash after the hallucinatory quality of Sanjana’s time with Sunny.

But along the way, the novel --- while also being very funny at times, especially Sanjana’s forthright first-person narrative voice --- prompts reflection about varying paths toward (or away from) motherhood, about different versions of the self, and about the choices we all make as we mature. GODDESS COMPLEX is a memorable trip.