Family Life: A Novel Paperback – February 2, 2015

Family Life by Akhil Sharma is a coming-of-age story that revolves around the Indian immigrant experience in America and the aftermath of a family tragedy. The story is semi-autobiographical and told from the perspective of the younger son, Ajay. The accident leaves one family member incapacitated, and the pressure of living as reviled outsiders in a foreign land threatens to break the family structure and the individuals in it. The author describes the community of Indian expats and their bizarre rituals and behaviors in familiar and somewhat outlandish detail. The narrator, Ajay, uses flat and lackluster Prose to tell the events of his life. However, the book has moving moments where Ajay's childlike observations illuminate a scene or kindle a spark of recognition in the reader. The book is unsparing in its descriptions of the ravages of the tragic incident and the grueling day-to-day chores of caring for a profoundly disabled person. The family members struggle to cope differently, with blind hope, intoxication, rage, confusion, fantasy, guilt, defensiveness, and the accrual of a protective shell. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, but it encapsulates the person that the damaged little boy has become.