The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Mariner $90
Ashoke Ganguli and his arranged bride, Ashima, leave their families in Calcutta and emigrate to the US, and the plot follows 30 years of their lives there. Ashoke becomes a successful academic and Ashima struggles to reinvent herself as an American housewife. They have two children, a son named Gogol (after the 19th- century Russian writer) and a daughter, Sonia. The events are punctuated with gentle comic scenes. The Gangulis are often stymied by low-level bureaucrats, such as hospital staff. Gogol squirms through an English class when the teacher gives a lesson on Nikolai Gogol: 'Gogol's life was a steady decline into madness.' That evening Gogol refuses to read a word of his namesake's writing. Gogol also dates Maxine Ratliff, but his mother wants him to marry another woman.