The Zigzag Way, Anita Desai’s twelfth novel, describes the life and experiences of a young Harvard graduate, Eric, in Mexico of the early 1900s. The novel’s epigraph suggests a descent down the ladder of time. Through the skillfully placed opening lines of the novel, Desai prepares the reader for a world where the immigrant protagonist retraces the tunnels of the past and discovers new, precious veins, as the past fuses with the present.