You wouldn’t think there was any more space left in the world for another novel of the American immigrant experience. Apparently there is, and here it is.
FAMILY LIFE is about a boy who moves from India to the US with his family as a child.
The charm of the novel is Sharma’s creation of a child’s eye view of the world, direct, assured, sometimes kind of racist. Here’s two pieces on his father:
I used to think my father had been assigned to us by the government. This was because he appeared to serve no purpose.
And:
While my mother was interested in status, being better educated than others or being considered more proper, my father was just interested in being rich . . . Because of my grandfather’s problems, my father had grown up feeling that no matter what he did, people would look down on him. As a result, he cared less about convincing people of his merits and more about just owning things.
The family are on the path of hard work and immigrant grit when his SPOILER ALERT older brother is in an accident that leaves him brain damaged. Things get much harder from there. Side point, I love this:
Weeks passed. The weather got colder. The days tipped backward into darkness. Some evenings our house and street appeared dark while the sky was light. In October the trees shed their leaves, and our houses stood undefended on its lawn.
He works hard in high school, has a girlfriend, goes on to university, and becomes a miserable investment banker (is there another kind?). I liked this thought on his girlfriend:
Minkashi lives in Texas now. She is an accountant. This surprises me because you always expect people who matter a great deal to you to end up leading glamorous lives
A really good book. I shall look for his other novel.