Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake

EXTRAORDINARY PRAISE FOR
T HE N AMESAKE

"Extraordinary ... an insightful and descriptive take on family,tradition, and self-acceptance ... Jhumpa Lahiri is an accomplishednovelist of the first rank." San Diego Union-Tribune

"Memorable fiction ... Lahiri's gift is for shrewd insight into character done up in elegantly understated prose ... Astringent and clear-eyed in thought, vivid in its portraiture, attuned to American particulars and universal yearnings." Newsday

"A moving first novel ... Lahiri writes beautifully controlled prose." San Francisco Chronicle

"Lahiri's writing is assured and patient, inspiring immediate confidence that we are in trustworthy hands. Lahiri beautifully conveys the migr's disorientation, nostalgia, and yearning for tastes, smells, and customs left behind."

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Poignant ... A novel of exquisite and subtle tension, spanning two generations and continents and a plethora of emotional compromises in between ... The Namesake is a story of guilt and liberation; it speaks to the universal struggle to extricate ourselves from the pastfrom family and obligation and the curse of history." Boston Globe

"Quietly dazzling ... The Namesake is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision... a debut novel that is as assured and eloquent as the work of a longtime master of the craft." New York Times

"This novel powerfully depicts the universal pull of family traditions."Lifetime

"Lahiri's graceful first novel more than ful.lls the promise of her Pulitzer-winning story collection ... The exquisitely detailed saga of the Ganguli family ... becomes the classic story of American immigration and assimilation."

Entertainment Weekly

"The Namesake ... confirms what her first book suggestedthat she's a writer of uncommon grace and sympathy."

San Jose Mercury News

"Lahiri handles issues of assimilation and belonging with her trademark mix of quiet observation and heartbreaking honesty ... the casual beauty of the writing keeps the pages turning."

Elle

"Written in an elegant husheven upon rereading, there isn't a single burned raisin in the mix."

New York Times Book Review

"This tale of aspiration and double identity is far more authentic and lavishly imagined than many other young writers' best work." Time Out New York

"Hugely appealing ... Gracefully written and filled with wellobserved details, Lahiri's novellike her heromanages to bridge two very different societies and to give us the absolute best of both." People

"Lahiri is an intuitive writer ... her gift is a power of sympathy."

The Nation

"This eagerly anticipated debut novel deftly expands on Lahiri's signature themes of love, solitude, and cultural disorientation."

Harper's Bazaar

"A full flowering of her talent ... beautifully rendered ... Lahiri displays the knowingness of the native with the newcomer's openness to every detail." New York

"The Namesake does such a remarkable job of depicting the importance of family and how people cope in unfamiliar terrain that it is one of the best works of fiction published this year."

Seattle Times

"Achingly artful, Lahiri's first novel showcases her prodigious gifts." Baltimore Sun

"A book to savor, certainly one of the best of the year, and further proof that this immensely talented writer's prizewinning ways are far from over." Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A poignant, beautifully crafted tale of culture shock ... Reading it, anyone will understand how it feels to be a cultural outsider."

Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram

"A fine novel from a superb writer." Washington Post

"Emotionally charged and deeply poignant, Lahiri's tale provides panoramic views of her characters' lives."

Philadelphia Inquirer

"An enjoyably old-fashioned novel ... written in clear, quietly elegant prose ... A gifted storyteller, Lahiri has proven her literary mettle." Raleigh News and Observer

"The Namesake is a quietly moving first novel ... Intensely absorbing ... locates the universality in precisely evoked individuality." Columbus Dispatch

"Against all that is irrational and inevitable about life, Lahiri posits the timeless, borderless eloquence and permanence of great writing." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Sparingly beautiful prose ... Lahiri's novel ultimately dramatizes a common experience shared by all people: the search for identity." Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"[Lahiri's] simple, understated prose creates an emotional urgency that distinguishes her work from much more cluttered (and less vivid) contemporary fiction." Town & Country

"Lahiri's multiple gifts for storytelling, character development, and delicately precise imagery result in a rare and wonderful tale." Orlando Sentinel

"Lahiri's style in this novel, as in her short fiction, is graceful and beautiful." San Antonio Express-News

"Readers will find here the same elegant, deceptively simple prose that garnered so much praise for her short stories ... The result is a seemingly quiet, almost undramatic novel whose characters and incidents continue to leap freshly to mind weeks after reading it." Book Page

"A powerful and original voice." Star Tribune

BOOKS BY JHUMPA LAHIRI
Interpreter of Maladies
The Namesake

A MARINER BOOK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK

First Mariner Books edition 2004

Copyright 2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections
from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lahiri, Jhumpa.
The namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-618-48522-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 0-395-92721-8

1. Young menFiction. 2. MassachusettsFiction. 3. East
Indian AmericansFiction. 4. Children of immigrants
Fiction. 5. Assimilation (Sociology)Fiction. 6. Alienation
(Social psychology)Fiction. 7. Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich,
1809-1852AppreciationFiction. I. Title.
ps3562.a3i6n36 2003
813'.dc2i 2003041718

Book design by Melissa Lotfy
Typefaces: Janson and Serlio

Printed in the United States of America

MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A portion of this book appeared in slightly different form
in The New Yorker.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for
its generous support. My deepest thanks also go to Susan Choi,
Carin Clevidence, Gita Daneshjoo, Samantha Gillison, Daphne
Kalotay, Cressida Leyshon, Heidi Pitlor, Janet Silver, Eric Simonoff,
and Jayne Yaffe Kemp.

I am indebted to the following books: Nikolai Gogol, by Vladimir
Nabokov, and Divided Soul: The Life of Gogol, by Henri Troyat.
Quotations from "The Overcoat" are from David Magarshack's
translation.

For Alberto and Octavio, whom I call by other names

The reader should realize himself that it could not have happened otherwise, and that to give him any other name was quite out of the question.