All married couples have arguments. But what happens when shortly after that spat, your spouse disappears? That’s the beginning of acclaimed author Thrity Umrigar’s newest novel, “Missing Sam.” Aliya and Sam (short for Samantha) have been married for years and live a comfortable life in their Cleveland suburb. But after a party brings past irritations to the surface, they argue. And the next morning, Sam goes for a run and doesn’t come back.

Ali makes mistake after mistake when she realizes that Sam is missing. She thinks she has to wait 48 hours to report Sam missing to the police, and she deletes the nasty texts they sent each other after the party because she doesn’t want them to think she did anything wrong. As the days turn into weeks, the truths about friends and neighbors, and even clients, come to light. The real racism and discrimination that many feel against gay people and people of color rears its ugly face.

Both women are estranged from their families. Sam’s father was abusive to her mother and to her. She’s held a lot of anger because her mother always seemed to choose her husband over her daughter, and Sam has no desire to have a relationship with her father. Ali’s mother died when she was young, and her father remarried a woman who was very different from Ali’s mother. It’s been difficult for her to feel any connection with Yasmin, her stepmother, especially when the very religious Muslim woman is unable to accept that Ali is married to another woman.

Sam is a college professor, and Ali is an interior designer. The repercussions from Sam’s disappearance are both immediate and long-lasting. One of Sam’s students posts a nasty comment when Ali is out with friends who insisted she accompany them to an event instead of sitting home grieving and worrying. The post goes viral. This student’s hateful post casts doubt about Ali’s innocence and her supposed lack of grief about Sam’s disappearance. Ali’s clients wish her the best as they cancel their projects. And the worst part is not knowing what happened to Sam. No witnesses, no cameras, no clues, no information at all about what happened to her.

Umrigar’s ability to create characters who are relatable and whose lives showcase the difficulty many have with people from a different culture or religion, or who don’t mirror what they consider “normal.” In “Missing Sam,” she takes it to an even more granular level, as we see Ali and her culture clash with her stepmother. Both are Muslim, although Ali is struggling with her father’s increased interest in religion after he marries Yasmin. And when Ali visits India and sees firsthand the lengths gay people must undergo in order to keep the fact that they are gay hidden, she is appalled.

It’s almost overwhelming to try to think of all the themes and messages that emerge in this brilliant novel. At the beginning and throughout the novel, both women ruefully contemplate the fight that precipitated Sam’s running alone. The fight occurred because of each woman’s insecurity and childhood trauma. And that’s a theme that most people can relate to — how our own personal quirks and traits can make us more susceptible to certain negative behaviors of those we love. We expect more from those to whom we are closest, and the only ones we can take out our frustrations on are also those to whom we are closest.

Ali finds out which neighbors are true friends and which are not. She bears the brunt of those who view her and her marriage through the warped lens of Islamophobia and homophobia, including her own stepmother who refers to Sam as her “friend” and refuses to use the word “spouse.” There’s also the powerful depiction of Sam’s trauma when she returns to Ali after being kidnapped. Sam is irrevocably changed, and neither Sam nor Ali knows if things will ever go back to “normal,” or even if their marriage and their love will prevail.

Umrigar’s writing is as lyrical and lovely as always in this powerful, impactful story. It’s a novel that unveils the hidden biases and hatred some people feel for those who are different in any way. But it’s also about women taking back the narrative and regaining power over those who would seek to oppress. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot to consider and discuss. So, in essence, this is a perfect book club book.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.