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From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel in the tradition of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, exploring the ties and fractures of a close-knit Indian-American family in the aftermath of a violent encounter with the police.
Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple.
For the most part, these differences among the five members of the Shah family are minor irritants, arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one Saturday night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested. The fallout from that event will shake each family member's perception of themselves as individuals, as community members, as Americans, and will lead each to consider: how do we define success? At what cost comes ambition? And what is our role and responsibility in the cultural mosaic of modern America?
For readers of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, A Great Country explores themes of immigration, generational conflict, social class and privilege as it reconsiders the myth of the model minority and questions the price of the American dream.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 26, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780385689007
- File size: 234648 KB
- Duration: 08:08:50
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from January 22, 2024
Gowda’s scorching latest (after The Shape of Family) chronicles an Indian American family’s complex and varied attitudes toward class and racial divides in Southern California. Ashok and Priya Shah can’t quite afford affluent Pacific Hills, Calif., but they move there anyway, determined to raise their status after their humble beginnings as immigrants in middle-class Irvine. Their middle child, Maya, readily assimilates with her wealthy classmates at the new school, but their older daughter, Deepa, refuses to benefit from the social injustice of a segregated school system and insists on staying at her overcrowded old school with her close friend Paco, whose mother is undocumented. Deepa and her parents continually clash, especially after the Shahs’ 12-year-old son, Ajay, flies his homemade drone over the airport, accidentally crashes it into the ground, and is beaten by the police and arrested as a terrorism suspect. Deepa wishes her parents would acknowledge that Ajay is a victim of the systemic racism they expected to be protected from by moving to a gated community, but they’re more worried about becoming subjects of controversy as his continued jailing fuels a media storm. Gowda presents each family member’s viewpoint thoroughly, as well as the perspectives of the cop who leads the investigation into Ajay and another who believes he should be released. Her light touch is refreshing and graced with nuance, allowing her to find the truth in a wide range of perspectives. Readers won’t want to put this down. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Ayesha Pande Literary. -
Narrator Vikas Adam gives a powerfully affecting performance of this literary audiobook. Twenty years ago, Ashok and Priya Shah emigrated from India to the U.S. They've worked hard to build a life in the wealthy Pacific Hills for their family of five, including two teen daughters and a 12-year-old neurodivergent son named Ajay, who is tall and looks much older. They find themselves in crisis when Ajay is arrested, suspected of being a terrorist. Adam grips listeners with his versatile and emotive characterizations. He deftly switches between older and younger generations, genders, and ethnicities and uses a variety of authentic-sounding Indian accents. A thought-provoking listening experience explores immigration, classism, and racism. V.T.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
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