No One Can Pronounce My Name
A Novel
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4.1 • 17 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
One of Goodreads’ Best Books of the Month (May 2017)
One of BuzzFeed’s 31 Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Spring
One of The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of the Year
A HUMOROUS AND TENDER MULTIGENERATIONAL NOVEL ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND OUTSIDERS—THOSE TRYING TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY AND WITHIN THEIR OWN FAMILIES
In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can’t pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. Harit, a lonely Indian immigrant in his mid forties, lives with his mother who can no longer function after the death of Harit’s sister, Swati. In a misguided attempt to keep both himself and his mother sane, Harit has taken to dressing up in a sari every night to pass himself off as his sister. Meanwhile, Ranjana, also an Indian immigrant in her mid forties, has just seen her only child, Prashant, off to college. Worried that her husband has begun an affair, she seeks solace by writing paranormal romances in secret. When Harit and Ranjana’s paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears.
Rakesh Satyal's No One Can Pronounce My Name is a distinctive, funny, and insightful look into the lives of people who must reconcile the strictures of their culture and traditions with their own dreams and desires.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Satyal, the Lambda Award-winning author of Blue Boy, writes evocatively of Indian-American culture in his second novel, set in Cleveland. It revolves around two immigrants: Harit, a middle-aged department store salesman, and Ranjana, the wife of a math professor and mother to an American-born son, Prashant, a freshman at Princeton. Each of these characters struggle with issues of identity. Harit's sister's recent death is such a loss that every night he dons her sari and assumes her identity to give his mother something to live for. The pretense is stifling, yet it awakens his self-awareness. Struggling with empty-nest syndrome and believing that her husband is cheating on her, Ranjana rebels against Indian convention by working outside the home, writing on the sly, and striking up male friendships, including one with Harit. Prashant tries to meet cultural and parental expectations while asserting his independence. Satyal captures his characters' experiences within a close-knit Indian community, rounded out with excellent supporting characters like Harit's mother and Ranjana's husband, who have their own stories to tell, resulting in a vivid, complex tale.
