3 Review(s)

Family Life is a contemporary novel by Akhil Sharma which tells the story of an Indian family which migrates to the US only to find tragedy and loss. Summary of the Book When Mr. Mishra summons his familyto live with him in the United States, he presumes he's moving to a better life and taking them along. After all, he thinks, what is America but a land of ultimate promise and hope with its clear roads and glass buildings? When his family arrives there, they are hit by peril and risk instantly. While their younger son, Ajay, struggles to mix in with the hwite kids at school, their elder son Birju prepares for a prestigious examination for admission into one of the best schools around, his success marred by the accident which leaves him brain-damaged. Ajay is forced to cope with the ambitions and expectations of both parents now, as his mother slowly withdraws as she cares for Birju and his father turns into an alcoholic. Strongly autobiographical in this account, this book shows readers how one family's dream is very mismatched as it tries to find a place in the American Dream. About Akhil Sharma Akhil Sharma is an Indian-American writer best known for An Obedient Father and his short story Cosmopolitan. A graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Public Policy, Sharma won a Stegner Fellowship to the writing program at Stanford, and won several O. Henry Prizes. He won the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award and the 2001 Whiting Writers' Award for An Obedient Father, and Cosmopolitan was adapted into an acclaimed 2003 film of the same name.