Rakesh Satyal

3.5-stars, if we could do that here.

this novel is lovely. maureen corrigan, reviewing for NPR, put it very well:

"No One Can Pronounce My Name explores the politics of sexual identity, as well as the immigrant and first-generation American experience, but, unfashionable as it may sound, the novel's greater achievement lies in the compassionate, comic way it explores the universal human experience of loneliness."

my one 'yeah, but...' with this novel is that i felt prashant's arc was not as strong as ranjana's, and harit's. satyal does a wonderful job conveying the confusion, sadness, and loneliness being experienced by the characters, but his sensitivity keeps the story from feeling oppressive and without hope. this quiet, beautifully written novel has a lot of heart.… (more)

An enjoyably fluffy LGBT-themed novel set in the Indian-diaspora community in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Harit is a socially-awkward middle-aged bachelor shop assistant, living in what seems to be an atmosphere of mutual misunderstanding with his elderly mother after the Barbie-related death of his sister; Ranjana is an unfulfilled empty-nest mother-and-housewife whose son has gone off to be a high achiever at Princeton. Both of them clearly need to break out of their current lives in one direction or another. And Satyal, of course, ensures that they get the chance to do so.

There’s a lot of nice observation of the social structure of immigrant communities, with some delightfully cringe-making Indian parties, and Satyal also has a lot of fun at the expense of the Creative Writing industry, with a splendidly comic grand finale at a writers’ conference where the keynote speaker is a bigshot writer of novels about Indians in America (she’s recently moved to Lisbon and is about to publish her first book in Portuguese: Satyal can’t possibly be making fun of any real celebrity here, can he…?).

I was a little bit disappointed to find that there was nothing specific about the Cleveland setting: it’s all very generic suburbia, apart from the names of a real university and a few fictional shops and bars. Even when a character lands at Hopkins, he doesn’t feel compelled to notice its quaint period charm. The book is presumably set in Cleveland merely because Satyal grew up at the other end of Ohio and doesn’t want to embarrass his own family and friends.

In the end it’s a rather conventional American novel (Satyal is a publisher in his day-job), where the characters achieve fulfilment largely through becoming more integrated into America and (eventually) going to bed with the correct person, but there are quite a few enjoyably bizarre touches along the way.… (more)

This book is easily my second favorite read of the year so far after Girl, Woman, Other. It’s funny, touching, warm-hearted, and surprisingly deep. It’s also ferociously well-written. (One chapter made me close the book, say WOW, & sit for a while with the words. ) I can’t believe I’ve never heard of Satyal before–I’ll be reading as much of his other work as I can get my hands on. ⠀
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This is an ordinary book about ordinary people, some of whom are Indian immigrants to the midwestern United States. There is some insightful commentary (mainly about being an Indian immigrant to the midwestern US), but otherwise the story is inconsequential and the characters are forgettable. Not recommended.

Towards the end of the book, one of the characters, an aspiring writer, contrasts herself against a famous novelist (a thinly veiled Jhumpa Lahiri) and self reflects: "But she was not exceptional, so her characters would never have exceptional lives." That sentence accurately describes this book.… (more)