Family Life
Published on 29. April 2014
192 pages
978-0-571-31462-1 (ISBN)
Description
Ajay, eight years old, spends his afternoons playing cricket in the streets of Delhi with his brother Birju, four years older. They are about to leave for shiny new life in America. Ajay anticipates, breathlessly, a world of jet-packs and chewing-gum.
This promised land of impossible riches and dazzling new technology is also a land that views Ajay with suspicion and hostility; one where he must rely on his big brother to tackle classroom bullies. Birju, confident, popular, is the repository of the family's hopes, and he spends every waking minute studying for the exams that will mean entry to the Bronx High School of Science, and reflected glory for them all.
When a terrible accident makes a mockery of that dream, the family splinters. The boys' mother restlessly seeks the help of pundits from the temple, while their father retreats into silent despair - and the bottle. Now Ajay must find the strength of character to navigate this brave new American world, and the sorrows at home, on his own terms.
By turns blackly funny, touching, raw and devastating, Family Life is a vivid and wrenching portrait of sibling relationships and the impact of tragedy on one family from a boy's eye view.
This promised land of impossible riches and dazzling new technology is also a land that views Ajay with suspicion and hostility; one where he must rely on his big brother to tackle classroom bullies. Birju, confident, popular, is the repository of the family's hopes, and he spends every waking minute studying for the exams that will mean entry to the Bronx High School of Science, and reflected glory for them all.
When a terrible accident makes a mockery of that dream, the family splinters. The boys' mother restlessly seeks the help of pundits from the temple, while their father retreats into silent despair - and the bottle. Now Ajay must find the strength of character to navigate this brave new American world, and the sorrows at home, on his own terms.
By turns blackly funny, touching, raw and devastating, Family Life is a vivid and wrenching portrait of sibling relationships and the impact of tragedy on one family from a boy's eye view.
More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
0,49 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-571-31462-1 (9780571314621)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Akhil Sharma was born in Delhi in India and emigrated to the USA in 1979. His stories have been published in the New Yorker and in Atlantic Monthly, and have been included in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Collections. His first novel, An Obedient Father, won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He was named one of Granta's 'Best of Young American Novelists' in 2007.
Content
- Intro
- Landing Page
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- 1: My father has a glum nature.
- 2: I used to think that my father had been assigned to us by the government.
- 3: We began being invited to people's houses for lunch
- 4: We stood in my aunt's driveway with our luggage
- 5: We had sued the apartment building where Birju
- 6: I had not told anyone at school about Birju.
- 7: The day Birju was supposed to be brought to our house
- 8: Birju was lying on his exercise bed.
- 9: Seventh grade passed and I entered eighth.
- 10: At the end of ninth grade, as I was about to turn fifteen
- 11: Sometimes on weekends my parents went to temple
- 12: My mother and I took the train to New York
- 13: Before we opened any of the letters, we prayed.
- 14: Even when I left for college, shops had begun to open
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- By the Same Author
- Copyright
