Immigrant, Montana
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
ONE OF THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A singularly smart, engaging, and moving novel about a young immigrant in search of himself, and love, in the wider world.
Carrying a single suitcase, Kailash arrives in post-Reagan America from India to attend graduate school. His new friends in New York City teasingly call him Kalashnikov, then AK-47, then AK. He takes it all in his stride: he wants to fit in--and more than that, to shine.
As he begins to settle into American existence, AK comes under the indelible influence of a charismatic professor--also an immigrant, his personal history as dramatic as AK's life--and his perception of himself--are the very different natures of the women with whom he recklessly falls in and out of love.
Looking back on the formative period of his youth, AK is studiously observant and meditative and, in the moment, the boisterous embodiment of idealism, confusion, and chaotic desire. His wry, vivid perception of the world he is in, but never quite of, unfurls in a brilliant melding of anecdote and annotation, picture and text, that digs deep inside the varieties and vagaries of the immigrant experience. Building a case for himself, both as a good man in spite of his flaws and as an American in defiance of his place of birth, AK weaves a story that is at its core an incandescent investigation of love--despite, beyond, and across dividing lines.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The plot of Kumar's droll and exhilarating second novel (following Nobody Does the Right Thing) may feel familiar at first, but this coming-of-age-in-the-city story is bolstered by the author's captivating prose, which keeps it consistently surprising and hilarious. Indian immigrant Kailash arrives in New York in 1990 wide-eyed but also wry, self-aware, and intellectually thirsty. Kailash lives uptown and attends college, and soon has his first sexual experience, with the socially conscious Jennifer, a coworker at the bookstore where he works, who brings him hummus and takes him ice skating. After he and Jennifer break up, he begins to date the mischievous Nina, followed by a series of other young women; the novel's seven parts are titled after Kailash's romantic partners, his formal education intertwined with his personal education. Nina takes Kailash to Montana, where his memories of lovemaking are tangled with snippets of Victor Hugo, Wittgenstein, and the history of British colonialism in India. After several peregrinations, explorations, and women, Kailash lands back in Manhattan with a similarly academically curious woman named Cai Yan, who is also from India. Ultimately, his journey is more intellectual than physical, and the book includes a plethora of lively literary and cultural references in footnotes, sidebars, and illustrations. This novel is an inventive delight, perfectly pitched to omnivorous readers. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
