Family Life

A Novel

By: Akhil Sharma

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

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.

©2014 Akhil Sharma (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

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

"Narrator Vikas Adam's skill with accents is considerable - when he reenacts dialogue, in particular, this recording dazzles. Characters become real, and the listener is fully engaged with the story. At the same time, there are long stretches wherein exposition may lull the listener into distraction; however, these observations, which contrast the Mishra family's new lives in America with their old lives in India, are integral to the story. Furthermore, the quietness of Adam's delivery makes the tragic turns of the plot even more affecting. This audiobook may not be for everyone, but the performance is solid." ( AudioFile)

I got lost in this book

Just a beautiful true story, beautifully told. Recommended. The ending didn't feel like an ending, but that was right for the book.

IMMIGRANT

Akhil Sharma writes about his life as a young Indian immigrant that arrives in America with his family in the late 1970s. “Family Life” is the second book written by Sharma. One presumes the story is about a unique immigrant experience; interestingly, it is and it isn’t. “Family Life” is about family life. Every family has its joys and sorrows, but Sharma offers useful and universal ways of coping with unexpected events and family crises that occur in every family’s life.

Every human being chooses their own way of coping with life’s imperfectness and hardship. Ajay chooses academic excellence and becomes a successful stockbroker. His older brother chooses to take a risky dive into a concrete pool and interrupts a promising life. His father decides to immigrate to America but is overcome by alcoholism. His mother obsessively pushes her point-of-view; but cares for an invalid son, stays married to an alcoholic, and raises an accomplished American’ business man. All of it or pieces of it are part of what is called “Family Life”.

Honest and touching

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Very moving and honest story. Despite being a short book, I was able to bond with the characters and understood them. Being Indian myself, I was able to relate with the general attitudes and characters.

What about Vikas Adam’s performance did you like?

Clear diction, authentic accents, tone of voice very much in line with the sombre and honest mood of the story.

If you could take any character from Family Life out to dinner, who would it be and why?

The father.

Depressing

Performance very well done; however I found the story way too depressing. Nothing seemed to be resolved. Failed to find anything uplifting in it

Portraint of an immigrant family

What did you like best about Family Life? What did you like least?

Portrayal of an immigrant's family struggle under difficult circumstances. The story ended prematurely without development of some of the themes.

Was Family Life worth the listening time?

Yes

Any additional comments?

This was a study in an immigtrant family's relentless drive for success through their children's lives under diffficult circumstnces. It portrayed the struggle of adaptation to a very different culture.The charcters are well devellped and realistic. The narration was excellent and well paced.
The story could have been more fully devloped however, and I found the ending disappppointing because I felt it was premature.