Birju Mishra was the chosen one. The elder son of a Delhi couple who had moved to New York at the end of the 1970s, he was diligent and dutiful, studied hard, bagged a place at an elite school. But he wasn't just another Asian swot or nerdy immigrant. He liked sport. He even had a girlfriend (a Korean one at that). His promise and potential matched those of America itself. His success appeared to prove that the American Dream was no chimera. Then one day he dived into a swimming pool and hit his head. At once, his glistening future was over.
Akhil Sharma's Family Life is a delicate and often moving work of palliative poetics, based on a calamity that befell his own brother, that documents the impact of Birju's accident on the people around him. As he lies stricken and unable to communicate, his younger brother Ajay, through whose eyes the novel is narrated, prays so hard his gums hurt, is sent out of class by insensitive schoolteachers when he starts crying, concocts elaborate stories about Birju's brilliance. His father takes to drink.
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