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Family Life: A Novel Paperback – February 2, 2015

by Akhil Sharma (Author)

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One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels

Winner of the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award

"Gorgeously tender at its core…beautiful, heartstopping…Family Life really blazes." ―Sonali Deraniyagala, New York Times Book Review

Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" (Philadelphia Inquirer) for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived" fiction (New York Times), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice "as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky" (The Nation). In his highly anticipated second novel, Family Life, he delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision.

We meet the Mishra family in Delhi in 1978, where eight-year-old Ajay and his older brother Birju play cricket in the streets, waiting for the day when their plane tickets will arrive and they and their mother can fly across the world and join their father in America. America to the Mishras is, indeed, everything they could have imagined and more: when automatic glass doors open before them, they feel that surely they must have been mistaken for somebody important. Pressing an elevator button and the elevator closing its doors and rising, they have a feeling of power at the fact that the elevator is obeying them. Life is extraordinary until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother severely brain-damaged and the other lost and virtually orphaned in a strange land. Ajay, the family’s younger son, prays to a God he envisions as Superman, longing to find his place amid the ruins of his family’s new life.

Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 2, 2015
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-10

0393350606
ISBN-13

978-0393350609
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Outstanding…Every page is alive and surprising, proof of [Sharma’s] huge, unique talent."
― David Sedaris

"Riveting… Sharma is compassionate but unflinching."
― Sonali Deraniyagala, The New York Times Book Review

"Dark humor twines through Sharma’s unforgettable story of survival and its costs."
― Mary Pols, People

"Surface simplicity and detachment are the hallmarks of this novel, but hidden within its small, unembellished container are great torrents of pity and grief. Sedulously scaled and crafted, it transforms the chaos of trauma into a glowing work of art."
― The Wall Street Journal

"I lost all track of time while I was reading it, and felt by the end that I’d returned from a great and often harrowing journey… To my own surprise, I found myself renewed after reading it, and imbued with a feeling of hope."
― John Wray, Salon

"Sharma spent 13 years writing this slim novel, and the effort shows in each lucid sentence and heartbreaking detail."
― Stephen Lee, Entertainment Weekly

"A heartbreaking novel-from-life… [Sharma] takes after Hemingway, as each word of his brilliant novel feels deliberate, and each line is quietly moving."
― Maddie Crum, Huffington Post

"There's nothing like the pleasure of being devastated by a short novel. Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Akhil Sharma writes of the Indian immigrant experience with great empathy and a complete lack of sentimentality. Family Life is a dark and thrilling accomplishment by a wildly gifted writer."
― Ann Packer

"Family Life is a terse, devastating account of growing up as a brilliant outsider in American culture. It is a nearly perfect novel."
― Edmund White

"Sharma is a rare master at charting the frailties and failures, the cruelties and rages, the altering moods and contradictions, whims and perversities of a tragic cast of characters. But this most unsentimental writer leaves the reader, finally and surprisingly, moved."
― Kiran Desai

"An immigrant story like no other: funny and dark, unrelenting and above all, true."
― Nell Freudenberger

About the Author

Akhil Sharma is the author of Family Life, a New York Times Best Book of the Year and the winner of the International DUBLIN Literary
Award and the Folio Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award Stories. A native of Delhi, he lives in New York City and teaches English at Rutgers University–Newark.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (February 2, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393350606
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393350609
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #388,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #748 in Asian American Literature & Fiction
- #6,798 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #22,022 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Akhil Sharma is the author of An Obedient Father, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award Stories. A native of Delhi, he lives in New York City and is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark.

Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5

1,914 global ratings

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Jean

A family life...a real life

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2014

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I thought it was very good. Written very well and very easy to read and get in to. While reading I could truly imagine what each family member was going through. And was able to sympathize with each family member. From the author, himself, it's amazing he came through his childhood and became a productive member of society, to his father, who wrestled with his life change and the sadness of the change(I think I may have identified with him the most), to his mother, who just did what she did to care for her son because that was her only voice in life. I also enjoyed the cultural insights. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is I felt that it just ended upbruptly. I felt like I lived with this family for a while and then within a few pages it was all over. I wanted an update on where everyone is now! And what life is like for everyone. I am glad I read it and would recommend it to anyone.

2 people found this helpful

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Jill I. Shtulman

"I couldn't believe that everything had changed because of three minutes."

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2014

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“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So wrote Leo Tolstoy over a century ago. Akhil Sharma’s canvas is a distinctly unhappy family, and we’re alerted to it from the very first line: “My father has a glum nature. He’s been retired for a few years and he doesn’t speak much.”

There’s a reason for his father’s glumness. As Indian immigrants, Ajay (the young narrator’s) parents had high hopes for their life in America, mainly centering around Ajay’s older brother Birju – a brilliant young scholar. Early on in the novel, Birju dives into a swimming pool, striking his head, leaving him forever brain damaged. It is now up to Ajay to navigate the treacherous waters ahead: deal with his own guilt and resentment and at the same time, strive to remain happy and make his parents proud.

Akhil Sharma does not go for bells and whistles. The narrative is written in a spare and somewhat flattened tone, echoing the sense of loss and futility that pervades the closed-down Mishra family life. The price exacted by this personal tragedy – the isolation and alienation, the deceptions, the drinking and loss of identity – are balanced against a somewhat empty striving for the American dream.

I was alerted to the fact that Family Life could be autobiographical by Ajay’s budding sense of himself as an observer and recorder of his life, reimagined into fiction. (Ajay is particularly enamored of Hemingway and indeed, Mr. Sharma’s style here is not unlike Hemingway’s in its distancing of emotion). Sure enough, after Googling the author, Family Lie is indeed based on his own experiences. In an article, Mr. Sharma states, “The story I was planning to tell had very little plot. A truly traumatic thing occurs to the family and then the family begins to unravel. This misery of this family’s daily life takes a slow toll.”

To the book’s credit, it comes across as very authentic and believable without any of the manipulation one might expect from a topic of this sort. It is universal in examining a family’s response to loss and distinctive in its spotlight on the Indian community in general, and the Mishra family in particular. It is a genuine look at those who are forced to embark into unchartered territory and how, as an immigrant nation, we become removed not only from our roots but also from our own best selves.

One person found this helpful

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MP

A book for spare tastes - not for lovers of plot or sumptuous prose

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018

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Pros:
- A slim volume with sparse prose that doesn't stall the forward momentum.
- Unflinchingly honest portrayal of an immigrant family dealing with the strangeness of their new life.
- Spare, brutally honest depiction of a family coping with a life-changing tragedy.
- Always convincing and believable.

Cons:
- Not enough going on to begin with, so the only thing providing "forward momentum" is the prose. The story stagnates.
- Characterization focuses on emphasizing key qualities through reiteration, NOT through gradual development, flashes of insight, or the uncovering of nuances, so after a while I didn't find any of them very compelling.
- Simply "coping" with a tragedy by finding a way to live through day-by-day doldrums and routine - no matter how true it may seem to life - does not a good story (or even good literature) make.
- For some, the prose will seem punitively bland. A cunning reference to Hemingway as one of the narrator's personal heroes does little to buy him credit with those who love language (like me) and wish to see its glories celebrated in literature.
- Almost no deeper insights or moments of thoughtfulness. The experience is rendered in all its muteness and tedium, but with no sense of transcendence. No doubt another attempt at being Hemingwayan and "true to life".

Verdict: This is one of those books whose writing is celebrated because it is "brave" and "honest", and nobody wants to criticize a book that required such courage of the writer, someone who has put his own life experience out there for our consumption.

To be fair, the talent on display is obvious: Akhil Sharma is a terrific writer, and I can easily see why he is a Creative Writing professor at a reputable MFA program. But when I learned that he took so many years to write this very slim and simple book, I was rather surprised. The prose is milk bland and free from nuance, and the narrative is rather straightforward; there aren't that many deeper meanings or resonances. Even the fictional technique is neither particularly complex nor subtle. Hemingway - who is cleverly flagged as an influence and, probably, intended as a point of comparison - may have written in simple prose, but the technical effects he achieved by doing so required it, and took tremendous craft and skill, all of which can be observed upon careful reading. A careful reading of this book reveals relatively little of the same (at least not for a book that took close to a decade to write).

The real trouble with this book, however, is that it seems to subscribe to a rather problematic view of fiction, one that refuses to admit the gap between art and life, and one that often confuses the line between the two. To be effective, fiction MUST be a little unfaithful to life, or else it will lack shape and meaning. And a person's pain - no matter how sincerely felt or truthfully rendered - means very little to readers unless it has been transmuted through craft and narrative into a story.

What we have here is basically a character who sits around and observes things with exquisite detail, and very little else. He is almost entirely passive; throughout the narrative, things happen to him, but he himself does not do much to inform the events. This is one of the risks of having child narrators at the center of a story, as children generally do not have much power or opportunity to matter to the events unfolding around them. But characters who do not take actions with meaningful consequences have little to recommend them to us or command our attention.

I hope Mr. Sharma writes more books - he will probably create some really great works with his skill - but this book let me down after the first 80 pages or so.

11 people found this helpful

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Esme McMonagle

Gentle Tragedy

Reviewed in Canada on February 14, 2015

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A family broken by the weight of sudden unexpected disaster. A son writing with excruciating honesty about his rage and pain. The author's sparse vivid style brings it all to life. An incredible read!

3 people found this helpful

Anita Anand

A must read

Reviewed in India on July 29, 2016

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Akhil Sharma's Family Life is a must read for everyone. Its about families, especially immigrant families and how they adapt to their adopted land. Or not. And, what happens when there is a family tragedy. In this case, an older brother, the apple of his parents eye, has an accident and is brain dead. An Indian family that migrated from India, his parents resort to many ways to deal and cope with this tragedy. The author, as a younger son, writes almost first hand about this and how it affected his life, including his parents'. The book is stark. Written in short and simple sentences it lays bare the emotional life of people and how they experience tragedy and change. How they deal with anger, guilt, resentment and finally, find forgiveness and acceptance. There isn't a part of the book that wouldn't resonate with readers.

David Gómez

Gran libro

Reviewed in Spain on October 10, 2015

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Esta novela es de lo mejor que he leído últimamente. Narrada desde el punto de un niño, el lector siente ternura y simpatía por el protagonista. El inglés me ha parecido un poco raro. No es que sea incorrecto, pero sí ligeramente diferente a la narrativa de un nativo anglosajón. El libro se lee muy rápido y es ligero. Una lectura muy grata.

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SimVLS

Excellent récit

Reviewed in France on May 4, 2015

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ce livre émouvant, drôle, et instructif sur les migrants, ici indiens mais à valeur universelle, est captivant jusqu'à la fin.

One person found this helpful

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Mexireader

The end could have been better.

Reviewed in Germany on March 26, 2015

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I liked that the conflict of the Mishras coming to the USA, especially of the main character, was not so focused on a cultural or generational Problem. It is an original, rough and entertaining story but I am not the big fan of simple happy endings. It was too much suffering throughout the novel for such an easy ending.

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