South Haven
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“A vivid portrait of second-generation immigrants . . . Sawhney is pitch-perfect when describing the uneasy relationship between adolescents and their parents.” —The Times Literary Supplement
Siddharth Arora lives an ordinary life in the New England suburb of South Haven, but his childhood comes to a grinding halt when his mother dies in a car accident. Siddharth soon gravitates toward a group of adolescent bullies, drinking, and smoking instead of drawing and swimming. He takes great pains to care for his depressive father, Mohan Lal, an immigrant who finds solace in the hateful Hindu fundamentalism of his homeland and cheers on Indian fanatics who murder innocent Muslims. When a new woman enters their lives, Siddharth and his father have a chance at a fresh start. They form a new family, hoping to leave their pain behind them.
South Haven is no simple coming-of-age tale or hero’s journey, blurring the line between victim and victimizer and asking readers to contend with the lies we tell ourselves as we grieve and survive. Following in the tradition of narratives by Edwidge Danticat and Junot Díaz, Sawhney draws upon the measured lyricism of postcolonial writers like Michael Ondaatje but brings to his subjects distinctly American irreverence and humor.
“An affecting tale of a family’s loss, a child’s grief, and the search for solace in all the wrong places. Hirsh Sawhney is an incandescent voice in fiction.” —Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize finalist
“This luminous debut . . . captures precisely the heartache of growing up.” —Library Journal
“A raw portrait of a motherless family . . . poetic.” —The Village Voice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sawhney's debut novel, a coming-of-age tale mixing grief, violence, and extremism, follows the life of Indian-American teen Siddharth Arora as he deals with the death of his mother, political tensions at home, and attempts to fit in amongst the bored and troubled youth of his Connecticut suburb. Sid flits between being a supportive son and brother and rebelling against them to fit into the world of his friend Marc, a world where he is uncertain of himself and what he stands for. In addition to his inner battles, Siddharth is torn between his brother's new American liberalism and his traditionalist Hindu father, a man who lived through incredible violence in his native country. Siddharth struggles to play peacemaker and keep his family together, if only for his mother's memory. Then, when his dad begins seeing a new woman, Ms. Farber, she joins the family and becomes the glue that offers the structure and compassion that Siddharth and his father have been longing for ever since the death of his mother. With shifting teen angst colliding with his new, upturned reality, Sid becomes aware of his failings and mistakes as he discovers what it means to be loyal to the ones you love. This is a fantastic debut about growing up as an outsider in a divisive environment. This review has been corrected; a previous version misspelled two names.
