A Life of Adventure and Delight

May 15, 2017
The eight stories in this collection from the author of Family Life follow modern Indians at home and abroad as they face the trials of marriage, parenthood, and assimilation. In “Cosmopolitan,” the solid first story, a husband abandoned by his wife and daughter begins a short-lived affair with his reticent neighbor. In “Surrounded by Sleep,” a young boy reevaluates his worldview after a freak accident forces his brother into a coma. A wife in an arranged marriage tries to recapture the fleeting moment she felt love for her husband in “If You Sing Like That For Me.” The title story is the collection’s most accomplished, relating the romantic highs and lows of an Indian PhD student in New York City with wry humor and psychological complexity. While there are moments of genuine insight and heartbreak, the collective effect of the stories seems subdued to a fault. Those seeking quiet moments of revelation will find them here.

March 15, 2017
Neither adventure nor delight await the characters of this ironically titled collection.The first line of the title story sets the scene: -The side door of the police van slid open, rattling, and he was shoved inside.- Gautama has been arrested for hiring a prostitute; -like many foreign students in America who are living away from home for the first time,- he quickly gravitated to the illicit joys offered on the internet. After his brush with the law, he begins dating another Indian grad student. When his parents reject his choice, he ends up back on Craigslist. -Adventure and delight-? Hmmmm. An apter phrase might be -bad luck and isolation,- and that is the real throughline in this collection of stories. In -Cosmopolitan,- an Indian man who has been abandoned by his wife and daughter begins an affair with his neighbor Mrs. Shaw after she stops by to borrow a lawn mower. Despite his assiduous study of women's magazines, Mrs. Shaw remains a mystery. He also attempts to win some friends in the Indian expat community by memorizing a book called 1,001 Polish Jokes and changing the Poles to Sikhs. It doesn't work. The narrator of -If You Sing Like That for Me- experiences love in her arranged marriage only once, for just a few hours. (Once you've met her husband, you'll sympathize.) -You Are Happy?- is the story of a boy who is miserable--his mother is an alcoholic who is eventually sent to India to be murdered by her own family. In -A Heart Is Such a Heavy Thing,- the protagonist's 12-year-old brother threatens to hang himself on the day of the nuptials. -If you want to stop the wedding, remember to kill yourself before, not after, we are married,- advises the groom-to-be. A short story which seems to have been the origin of Sharma's breakout novel (Family Life, 2014)--same names, same swimming accident, same brain-dead brother--is included as well. Filled with a strong sense of the odds against any kind of happiness, these stories have a psychological acuity that redeems their dark worldview.

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February 15, 2017

You can expect Sharma's story collection to be good. Not only have his pieces appeared in Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award Stories but he proved himself when he debuted with Family Life, a New York Times Best Book and winner of the International Dublin Literary Award. From a wife in an arranged marriage who finds that she loves her husband to a man who comes to admire a cousin tending a sick woman, the stories feature Indian protagonists at home and abroad. Most of these pieces appeared in The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017

This short story collection by the author of Family Life, an International Dublin Literary Award winner, depicts Indians at home and abroad. A number of the pieces involve lonely Indian men in the United States negotiating relationships with women. In "Cosmopolitan" and "The Well," the women are white, while in "A Life of Adventure and Delight," the protagonist is at a loss when it comes to dating an Indian woman he meets at New York University. The men consider dating as a staged activity that precedes an arranged marriage and struggle to adapt to U.S. norms. Arranged marriages are the topic in "If You Sing Like That for Me," told from a wife's perspective, and "A Heart Is a Heavy Thing," centered on the groom's family. Things don't go well in "You Are Happy?" when an arranged marriage sends a young family to America and the unhappy wife tries to drink herself to death. The overarching theme of this collection is family; regardless of their status, neither the men nor the women exist independently of extended family members. Conflicts are recognizable across cultural boundaries, but they are steeped in Indian culture and relationships. VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in diverse fiction and short stories. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]--Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.