America for Beginners
by Leah Franqui
Paperback: 336 pages
William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (July 30, 2019)
Recalling contemporary classics such as Americanah, Behold the Dreamers, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a funny, poignant, and insightful debut novel that explores the complexities of family, immigration, prejudice, and the American Dream through meaningful and unlikely friendships forged in unusual circumstances.
Pival Sengupta has done something she never expected: she has booked a trip with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company. But unlike other upper-class Indians on a foreign holiday, the recently widowed Pival is not interested in sightseeing. She is traveling thousands of miles from Kolkata to New York on a cross-country journey to California, where she hopes to uncover the truth about her beloved son, Rahi. A year ago Rahi devastated his very traditional parents when he told them he was gay. Then, Pival’s husband, Ram, told her that their son had died suddenly—heartbreaking news she still refuses to accept. Now, with Ram gone, she is going to America to find Rahi, alive and whole or dead and gone, and come to terms with her own life.
Arriving in New York, the tour proves to be more complicated than anticipated. Planned by the company’s indefatigable owner, Ronnie Munshi—a hard-working immigrant and entrepreneur hungry for his own taste of the American dream—it is a work of haphazard improvisation. Pival’s guide is the company’s new hire, the guileless and wonderfully resourceful Satya, who has been in America for one year—and has never actually left the five boroughs. For modesty’s sake Pival and Satya will be accompanied by Rebecca Elliot, an aspiring young actress. Eager for a paying gig, she’s along for the ride, because how hard can a two-week “working” vacation traveling across America be?
Slowly making her way from coast to coast with her unlikely companions, Pival finds that her understanding of her son—and her hopes of a reunion with him—are challenged by her growing knowledge of his adoptive country. As the bonds between this odd trio deepens, Pival, Satya, and Rebecca learn to see America—and themselves—in different and profound new ways.
A bittersweet and bighearted tale of forgiveness, hope, and acceptance, America for Beginners illuminates the unexpected enchantments life can hold, and reminds us that our most precious connections aren’t always the ones we seek.
My Rating:
They had raised Rebecca with strong assurances that she could be anything she wanted to be, and then, like so many American parents, were surprised and dismayed when she believed them.
He ate ravenously at every meal, piling on plate after plate of rice and patting his nonexistent stomach after the waiters politely told him, as they had at each place, that he couldn’t have any more of the buffet, because had exceeded what they had imagined “all you can eat" could possibly mean.
“No.” Mrs. Sengupta said it with the gentleness of a falling feather and the finality of a bag of lead.
… Jake’s knowledge of Judaism consisted of jokes made in Woody Allen movies and dishes he at in delis.
My Review:
I was stunned, astounded, and deeply awed to learn that this deftly written and thoughtfully crafted story was the author’s first book. It was superb at its lowest level and beyond divine at its zenith. I was quite taken by Ms. Franqui’s agility in conveying those elusive emotional tones, startling epiphanies, and shifts in thought. Her wry humor was clever and shrewdly placed. I was fully invested in every oddly compelling character and each well-scaffolded storyline, even though their vastly different cultural issues and disparities were completely unfamiliar and foreign to my thinking, their emotional conflicts and feelings of dissatisfaction and discontent were intensely relatable. I was captivated, enthralled, and mesmerized by Ms. Franqui’s cunningly constructed tale and found myself reading slowly to savor and contemplate each nuance. Ms. Franqui has mad skills and a rabid new fangirl.
About The Author
Leah Franqui is a graduate of Yale University and received an MFA at NYU-Tisch. She is a playwright and the recipient of the 2013 Goldberg Playwriting Award and also wrote a web series for which she received the Alfred Sloan Foundation Screenwriting award (aftereverafterwebseries.com). A Puerto Rican-Jewish Philadelphia native, Franqui lives with her Kolkata-born husband in Mumbai. AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS is her first novel.Find out more about Franqui at her website, and connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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