The Namesake, a novel Jhumpa Lahiri initially thought of abandoning because it aroused uneasy feelings about her own immigrant experience, has shot into the national bestseller list.
One of the best reviewed of recent novels -- the New York Times, for instance, called it "quietly dazzling" -- The Namesake shot into fourth place in the NYT bestseller list published on September 21.
The ranking reflects sale at almost 4,000 bookstores nationwide, and wholesalers serving 50,000 retailers, including supermarkets, gift shops, and newsstands.
The Times also noted that sales of the book are very close to the number three on the list, Terry Brook's fantasy High Druid of Shannara.
In the past two decades, just about three authors and their books with Indian backgrounds have made it to the NYT Top 10 list: Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, and now Lahiri's latest.
Several Indian and Indian American writers such as Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu) and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (The Vine of Desire) have had books on regional bestselling lists, say in Boston or San Francisco.
Lahiri's new book follows her Pulitzer Prize-wining collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. The first run for The Namesake, her first novel, was a strong 150,000 copies, according to industry sources. Houghton Mifflin has published both her books.
In several cities like San Francisco and Boston, the book has been at either the second or third place for two weeks now. Also, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Monica Ali's Brick Lane, which has been shortlisted for the Booker, is seventh on the chart of the San Francisco Chronicle. In the Greater Washington area, Lahiri's novel was seventh in the Washington Post list.
Lahiri told rediff.com that she had abandoned the book several years ago because she found it too painful to visit her own immigrant experience. But her characters ordered her back into it, she said.
The London-born, Rhode Island-raised Lahiri, 36, tells the story about the life of Gogol Ganguli, a man whose awkward name reflects his unanchored identity.
The novel takes us on the Ganguli family's journey from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through uneasy and often traumatic transformations into Americans.
Following their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle down in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts to the new country far less warily than his wife, who resists America and pines for her family.
When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays their uneasy existence in America. Named for a Russian writer, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he has not only to carry the onus of his heritage but also of his unusual name. The novel takes us deep into the recesses of Gogol's mind, slowly exposing his fears and traumas.
Lahiri told the Houston Chronicle recently that among other things, her book is about "learning to accept who you are, learning to accept your circumstances in life, learning to accept that life brings you to certain places you may not necessarily like, that may not necessarily make sense, and learning to live with that". It's a journey that not only Gogol but other characters in the book must make.
Lahiri, who says she would rather continue with her writing than go out to publicise the book, told rediff.com that she has begun to accept reality. "Sometimes, you like to make connection with interesting readers," she said.
"It is an overwhelming time for me," she had said a few days before the book reached the stores. "I have to prepare for interviews and then the publicity tour for the book. Life is at its best when I am working. I am not able to work on my writing consistently because of what I have to do for the book."
Was she worried about how the book was going to be received?
"I think there is nothing I can do about," she had said. "The book is out of my hands. It is not something I am thinking about actively. I hope people will find it interesting and absorbing. If they don't, I will accept whatever is going to happen. The only thing I can control is my writing. While I work, I can only force it to be the best book I can write. If the reception is bad, I will move on and write another. I am more interested in maturing as a writer [than worry about reception]."
Jhumpa Lahiri is going to about 10 cities on her book-reading tour. Among other places, she will read in Washington, DC, at a SAJA [South Asian Journalists Association] gathering on October 8. SAJA hosts her again on October 23 in New York. For details, check www.saja.org
