Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world. There's a lovely section where he dates a wealthy, cultured young Manhattan woman who lives with her charming parents. They fold Gogol into their easy, elegant life, but even here he can find no peace and he breaks off the relationship. His mother finally sets him up on a blind date with the daughter of a Bengali friend, and Gogol thinks he has found his match. Moushumi, like Gogol, is at odds with the Indian-American world she inhabits. She has found, however, a circuitous escape: "At Brown, her rebellion had been academic ... she'd pursued a double major in French. Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge--she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind." Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off inThe Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life.--Claire Dederer

Well, she could have done better
I got this book after Mira Nair decided to make a movie out of it. I have read the "Interpreter ..." which was a collection of short stories.

Being an Indian student in USA, and a Bengali, I could relate to many things that the author writes about - the food, the relationships. Some of the emotions about going abroad and feeling aliened in the beginning were so accurate, they make you smile and think "I know exactly what she means".

At places you would wounder whether she speaks from experience. All in all a good read, and a must for Indians living abroad.

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