The tree bride

the long version

"After the firebombing of her San Francisco house and a coincidental meeting during a routine doctor's visit, Calcutta-born Tara Chatterjee is compelled to embark on a most American of journeys, a search for her roots. Her task is to trace the story of her great-great-aunt, Tara Lata, who at the age of five was married to a tree in the Indian village of Mishtigunj. Her search takes her into the heart of her family history - and the history of her ancestral village - and it results in surprising, at times shocking, and eventually cathartic findings. As the layers of the past are exposed, Tara learns that her current life is affected by events and individuals generations old: a pirate attack that leaves a mute orphan adrift in the Bengal Sea, an egomaniacal colonialist torn between his love for Tara Lata and his loyalty to the British Raj, and the discovery of a small fortune at the base of a sundari tree."--BOOK JACKET.