Family Life: A Novel Hardcover – April 7, 2014

I was intrigued by the glowing critical reviews for “Family Life.” And though I can understand what inspired them, I would hesitate to recommend this book to a friend.It’s a coming-of-age story from the perspective of a child navigating the Indian immigrant experience in America and complicated by a family tragedy that leaves one of its members helplessly incapacitated and needing constant care. The long-term repercussions of the life-altering incident and the pressures of living as reviled outsiders in a foreign land threaten to shatter the family structure and the individuals in it. The author describes the community of Indian expats and their rituals and behaviors in familiar and somewhat outlandish detail. The narrator — the younger son, Ajay — relates the events of his life in flat, affectless prose that can make reading a slog, and even an ordeal, except for brief passages scattered throughout in which his artless, childlike observations about his circumstances and interior life suddenly illuminate a scene or kindle a spark of recognition in the reader. In those rare moments, the economy and particularity of the language become startling and moving.The book is unsparing in its descriptions of the ravages of the precipitating accident and of the queasily intimate and grueling day-to-day chores of caring for a profoundly disabled person. (The story is semi-autobiographical.) The family members who shoulder the burden of unceasing care struggle to cope in deeply personal ways: with blind hope, intoxication, rage, or, in the emotionally neglected boy Ajay’s case, confusion, fantasy, guilt, defensiveness, and the accrual of a protective shell.Like other reviewers here, I found the ending abrupt and unsatisfying; but on further reflection, I believe it encapsulates the person that this damaged little boy has become.The book is a downer — underpinned by love, but grim nonetheless.

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.

Akhil Sharma's first book 'An Obedient Father' is one of the most disturbing novels I've ever read and one of the most memorable. It won Sharma awards, acclaim and attention. And put incredible pressure on him to repeat that first success. 'Family Life' as the difficult second novel was clearly a hard one to write and a long time in the making.I had 'Family Life' on my Amazon wishlist for a long time, anticipating something equally special. Sadly, 'Family Life' will inevitably suffer from sitting in the shadow of 'An Obedient Father'. It's a solid, well-written and interesting book that tackles difficult topics but it lacks the oomph of its predecessor. In the notes after the book finishes, Sharma pays tribute to the editor who took him for lunch each year to 'celebrate' another year late with his submission. He eventually turned it in NINE years beyond the deadline. The end when it comes reads as if he rushed it before the next annual deadline - after 200+ pages of detail and introspection, it 'phts' out like a wet firework.An Indian family move to the USA, filled with the American Dream and all starts well. Only when a freak accident damages a family member, pushing that person into a zombie-like half-life and the rest of the family into a loving drudgery of care, does the dream go bad. As readers we're left wondering how people can suffer and love SO much, and whether death would have been better for all concerned. We see how the stress of their new life pulls the family apart, attracts freaks and weirdos and turns them into outsiders, set apart by their tragedy.I enjoyed the book - if it's possible to 'enjoy' something so sad - and I'll continue to read anything else that Sharma rights, but I fear he'll live his career in the shadow of 'An Obedient Father'.After writing an earlier version of this review, I did a bit of googling and was shocked to learn that the story is broadly autobiographical and that Sharma's own life closely mirrors that of his protagonist. I think this explains why it took so long to write, why it lacks the brutality of his first novel perhaps in the interests of protecting his family from too much intrusion. In the book keeping up appearances, hiding the trauma, pretending the father isn't a drunk, all take on great importance. With such a family, it must be very hard to draw the line between honesty and hurt feelings. I have greater respect for the author's personal challenges - but I still stand by the three star rating. It's good but not great and I shouldn't change my rating because of a greater understanding of his circumstances.I hope that getting 'Family Life' finished will allow Sharma to unblock his writing mojo and get him back to writing fantastic fiction again.

Ajay and his family move from Delhi to the USA, full of hopes and dreams about their future there. But a terrible accident leaves them caring for a severely disabled child. The novel is narrated by Ajay and spans the whole of his teenage years into adulthood, and shows the strain that such an accident and its aftermath places on a family.The writing is great quality, you are immediately drawn into the story and compelled to keep reading. The book is very believable, including the dialogue and the way that characters react to situations. Ajay is a sympathetic and realistic narrator, and despite the sadness of the topic, there are moments of humour also. The story shows how the entire family suffered as a result of the incapacitation of one of its members, in particular Ajay who loses his own childhood.Overall this is a moving and well written book about a situation that could affect any of us.

Despite the naff title, this is an amazing book. The author took thirteen years to get it together and one can understand why. It is loaded with difficult, emotional 'stuff'. I rank Sharma very highly in my list of best contemporary writers.

One of the most touching books I've read in recent times. Akhil Sharma does not ask for sympathy, yet he draws it out of you and tears your heart as he conveys the loneliness, hopelessness and despair of the family's situation, and how a little boy must give up his childhood in order to adjust to circumstances that life has thrust upon him. Powerful and heartbreaking.

This novel is a gem, the brilliantly pared down prose heavy with tragedy and absurdity. I cried when Ajay wanted to screw wooden squirrels onto the side of his parents' new house to make it look as if they were climbing up towards the roof. I recently read that it took Akhil Sharma twelve years to write this novel - it shows, every sentence is perfect and I am very glad he gave up investment banking to focus on writing.