Review by New York Times Review
A tale of Indian-Americans balancing community and selves. IN RAKESH SATYAL'S "No One Can Pronounce My Name," his second novel after the well-received "Blue Boy," we are given a portrait of the Indian-American experience filtered through the lens of three intersecting characters. This is not a tableau of exotic spices and brilliant saris, of flashbacks to fables told in a village back in the old country. This is a brave portrait that sheds light on the parts of Indian culture that are seldom seen by those outside it. Ranjana, a middle-aged receptionist living in a Cleveland suburb, devours vampire fiction, but not before she makes sure to tear offthe books' covers and title pages so that her husband, Mohan, "would not judge her." She tells him she's "working on recipes" instead of finding solace in writing paranormal fiction of her own. Ranjana has never had an orgasm, and when she finds in her husband's search history entries for "oral sex" - "an act that Mohan had never performed on Ranjana" - she worries it's for the benefit of another woman. She wants to confide in Seema, her best friend, but she can't risk her secret becoming fodder for gossip. When she befriends a young Indian gay man named Achyut, she is riddled with anxiety when they arrange to meet, imagining what someone from her community would say: "Even Seema, so progressive, would find a way to spin it into some lurid tale. Like any good bevy of Indians, they passed judgment on everything, from the way in which a woman wrapped her sari to the type of napkins that she provided at dinner parties." Ranjana and Mohan have an only child, Prashant, a freshman at Princeton who "didn't want to be another stereotypical South Asian kid who was 'good at math.'" He struggles to assert his independence while maintaining a connection to his roots - though even his roots sometimes offer less comfort than he would like. During a dinner he listens with shock as a family friend spews bigotry toward Muslims and Obama, and finally Prashant's outrage comes out: "What kind of community is this if we start criticizing the first minority president? Did you guys ever think you'd see the day a person of color was the leader of the free world?" After seeing the "condescending grins on their faces," he realizes "they were not looking for a sense of communion with other people." Harit, a single man in his 40s whose path eventually crosses with Ranjana's, is by far the least interesting of Satyal's characters, even though he dresses up as his dead sister for the benefit of his purblind mother. Harit is too quiet, too timid, though Satyal does give him tart powers of observation. He says that Indians often measured their worth "in material things - a fact that Indians tried to conceal from Americans." Indian men in particular "tried to act as if they were different," though "they were very much the same": "Their responsibilities were to provide for their families an Americanized sense of material wealth while still sticking to the Indian courtesies." There's so much to praise in Satyal's honesty that it's a shame Ranjana's obsession for vampire fiction feels not organic but forced, as if the author racked his mind for the most unexpected hobby for her demographic. Similarly, Harit's dressing up as his dead sister is described as "the logical thing to do," even though this could be a stock explanation for everything from jumping out a window to adopting an entire pound's worth of dogs. Quirkiness is not a stand-in for depth. The ending is also unsatisfying, and doesn't do justice to what came before. In the last chapters, shame-filled Ranjana has become a best-selling author reading to a packed audience. Anxiety-ridden Harit is living contentedly as an openly gay man. Satyal started out this novel by giving us the world, but he destroys it with all the patness of a Hollywood ending. 0 JADE SHARMA is the author of the novel "Problems."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 5, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* After Ranjana's son, Prashant, leaves to become an undergrad at Princeton, she and her husband, Mohan, are alone in their Cleveland home for the first time in 18 years. She secretly writes paranormal romances in the evenings and suspects that Mohan is having an affair. Harit, in his midforties, works in a department store and grieves for his sister, Swati. Harit dresses in Swati's saris in an attempt to connect with his mother, whose eyesight is failing and who has barely functioned since Swati's death. Lonely in their own ways, Ranjana and Harit form an unusual friendship that allows them to grow more than either thought possible. Through his beautifully crafted characters, Satyal's (Blue Boy, 2009) second novel explores identity, sexuality, family, immigrant life, and Indian and American cultures. His writing is both humorous and heart-wrenching while he tells Ranjana's and Harit's stories. He draws every character with such clarity and depth that their lives become vivid to the reader. Satyal expertly describes the everyday struggles that define his characters, and he elevates the extraordinary moments of normal life in this skilled and thought-provoking novel.--Chanoux, Laura Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Satyal (Blue Boy) brings together two couldn't-be-more-different Indian Americans for friendship, fun, and more (no, not like that). Harit, a department store salesman, has recently lost his sister; his mother, catatonic with grief, only reacts when Harit dons a sari and channels his dead sibling. Ranjana seems better-adjusted, but the gulf in her arranged marriage widens when her only child goes to college; her single true fulfillment is writing vampire romances that she'd never share with her family. The unlikely pair finally meet over a fancy meal and bond over the gooey challenge of eating French onion soup. Uncomfortable gatherings, a road trip à quatre, and unexpected happy beginnings await. Narrator Amol Shah is well-cast here, moving easily between awkward Harit and unsettled Ranjana, as well as a diverse supporting cast with distinct accents and cadences, including aging sophisticate Teddy (Harit's sales colleague); lost Achyut (Ranjana's "good gay friend"); searching Prashant (Ranjana's son); morphing Parvati (Harit's mother), who is so markedly different before and after her motherhood; garrulous Cheryl (Ranjana's coreceptionist); and many others. VERDICT What might meander on the page becomes more enlivening fodder for Shah. Libraries will want to enable listening in. ["An insightful look at East Indian American culture": LJ 2/1/17 review of the Picador hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian -BookDragon, -Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Indian immigrants to the U.S. struggle to find self-acceptance and meaningful relationships.Spanning a remarkable range of cultural milieus, Satyal's second novel (Blue Boy, 2009) tells the intersecting stories of three Indian immigrants living in a Cleveland suburb. Harit, an emotionally stunted middle-aged department store clerk, disguises himself in a sari to convince his nearly catatonic mother that her beloved daughter is still alive. Ranjana, a 40-something aspiring writer, has suspicions about her husband's fidelity, is disappointed by her friendships with other Indian women, and has doubts about her self-worth. Ranjana's son Prashant, a Princeton freshman, harbors misgivings about his major and life trajectory. Uniting the three is a keen desire to feel, and be recognized as, fully humanemotionally and sexually fulfilled, connected to their families and communities, and free of the grip of past traumas. Satyal imbues each of these characters (and a host of their friends, co-workers, and acquaintances) with psychological depth and does so, often, with cinematic vividness. These are stories of people who have not had the luxury of living unexamined lives. Having felt the sting of being scrutinized or ignored because of their accented English, their skin color, or their sexual orientation, they have developed introspection into both an art form and a crutch, so that even simple human connection comes as a wonderful surprise. Ranjana, for instance, is "pleased to discover that you could feel a friendship's construction if you took the time and care to notice it." As their lives intermingle, they discover not just friendship, but the value of their own heightened sensitivity to the world. A funny, uplifting novel that delivers emotionally complex characters. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
