India, Oct. 24 -- "A really good story should shift something inside you," says Rahul Bhattacharya, 46.

His new book, Railsong, certainly does. It follows a runaway teen from a middle-class home in a railway township, as she leaves it all behind and races across the country on a train, in 1974. It follows her - as well as the railways, and India - in intimate detail, through the next 18 years, through confusion, heartbreak and a sort of redemption.

Charulata Chitol (her surname borrowed from a beloved fish to replace a Brahmin caste tag), is an unusual runaway, a child of loving, liberal parents who broke caste barriers to marry.

Her tale, which took Bhattacharya 10 years to write, is masterfully constructed: an exploration of the pric...