09/07/2015
The large and small struggles that make up everyday life are woven into an international family saga in Gowda’s latest novel. After 10-year-old Anil Patel’s father witnesses the small miracle of a doctor fixing a child’s cleft lip in a nearby village in Western India, he and Anil agree that Anil should become a doctor. That decision later carries Anil far from his family’s farm to a medical internship in Dallas. As Anil settles into American life with all the fixings, including an American girlfriend, his loved ones in India are trapped by their traditions. Worst off is Anil’s childhood friend Leena, caught in an abusive marriage and powerless as a woman in traditional Indian culture. Anil must reckon with these issues when his father dies and he takes on familial duties, while keeping up with his American medical program. Straddling two worlds, Anil finds difficulty fitting into either. Like Gowda’s debut novel, Secret Daughter, which became a bestseller in Canada, this new book, with its depiction of family struggles, offers readers a vivid cultural immersion. Even if the outcome is somewhat predictable, and tied up a bit too neatly, the journey to get there is deeply pleasurable. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Pande Literary. (Jan.)
The Golden Son: A Novel
Narrated by Sunil Malhotra
Shilpi Somaya GowdaUnabridged — 13 hours, 59 minutes
The Golden Son: A Novel
Narrated by Sunil Malhotra
Shilpi Somaya GowdaUnabridged — 13 hours, 59 minutes
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Overview
The New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Secret Daughter returns with an unforgettable story of family, responsibility, love, honor, tradition, and identity, in which two childhood friends-a young doctor and a newly married bride-must balance the expectations of their culture and their families with the desires of their own hearts.
The first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family's expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the busiest and most competitive hospitals in America. When his father dies, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village's disputes. But he is uneasy with the custom, uncertain that he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather. His doubts are compounded by the difficulties he discovers in adjusting to a new culture and a new job, challenges that will shake his confidence in himself and his abilities.
Back home in India, Anil's closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena's romantic hopes, and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more-changing them both and the people they love forever.
Tender and bittersweet, The Golden Son illuminates the ambivalence of people caught between past and present, tradition and modernity, duty and choice; the push and pull of living in two cultures, and the painful decisions we must make to find our true selves.
Editorial Reviews
A stellar follow-up to Gowda’s excellent debut. Vivid, heart-warming, and absorbing, THE GOLDEN SON succeeds as an immigrant’s tale and love story wrapped into one because of the beautiful writing and compelling characters that illuminate universal truths of loss and identity.” — Heidi Durrow, New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
“THE GOLDEN SON triumphs because of its many pleasures and complications: romantic intrigues, family vendettas, unexpected tragedies and criminal secrets harbored by characters in both India and America. This satisfying immersion in two complicated cultures offers no easy resolutions.” — Washington Post
“Gowda is a gifted storyteller, bringing together various related story strands into a fully integrated whole.” — Vancouver Sun
“From a poor village in India to the journey of a boy who escapes to become a brilliant and sensible doctor at a high-tech medical center in Dallas, Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s sweeping love story is meticulous in its detail, heartfelt—and a great read.” — Samuel Shem, M.D., author of The House of God and At the Heart of the Universe
“Shilpi Somaya Gowda paints an illuminating portrait of a young Indian man who must learn to reconcile his career ambitions in America with the traditional values and expectations of his family in India. Compellingly written, THE GOLDEN SON will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. ” — Vanessa Diffenbaugh, New York Times-bestselling author of The Language of Flowers
“Gowda has the writerly chops when it comes to pace and plot...The novel’s denouement manages to subvert expectations, while still fulfilling the fable’s responsibility to convey a useful, resonant truth.” — Toronto Star
THE GOLDEN SON triumphs because of its many pleasures and complications: romantic intrigues, family vendettas, unexpected tragedies and criminal secrets harbored by characters in both India and America. This satisfying immersion in two complicated cultures offers no easy resolutions.
Gowda is a gifted storyteller, bringing together various related story strands into a fully integrated whole.
Shilpi Somaya Gowda paints an illuminating portrait of a young Indian man who must learn to reconcile his career ambitions in America with the traditional values and expectations of his family in India. Compellingly written, THE GOLDEN SON will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.
Gowda has the writerly chops when it comes to pace and plot...The novel’s denouement manages to subvert expectations, while still fulfilling the fable’s responsibility to convey a useful, resonant truth.
A stellar follow-up to Gowda’s excellent debut. Vivid, heart-warming, and absorbing, THE GOLDEN SON succeeds as an immigrant’s tale and love story wrapped into one because of the beautiful writing and compelling characters that illuminate universal truths of loss and identity.
From a poor village in India to the journey of a boy who escapes to become a brilliant and sensible doctor at a high-tech medical center in Dallas, Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s sweeping love story is meticulous in its detail, heartfelt—and a great read.
Shilpi Somaya Gowda is as adept at crafting disparate, fully realized worlds—a village in India, a medical school in Texas—as she is at creating compelling characters.
Gowda can write up moments that break your heart. . . . The Golden Son combines the immigrant novel with a fascination for the insecure and dependent lives of rural women in India.
The Golden Son triumphs because of its many pleasures and complications: romantic intrigues, family vendettas, unexpected tragedies and criminal secrets harbored by characters in both India and America. This satisfying immersion in two complicated cultures offers no easy resolutions.
Gowda masterfully develops place and characters with visual richness. She offers delicious storytelling. . . . The Golden Son is an absolute page-turner.
The Golden Son successfully achieves the virtually impossible: it is every bit as good and strong as . . . Secret Daughter. . . . It was five years in the making and worth the wait.
A sensitive and intelligent work . . . [with a] finely drawn protagonist. . . . Demonstrates Gowda’s abilities as a sympathetic observer of heart and mind.
Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s great achievement is this: she makes each locale she depicts fascinating and true and original; she makes each character she draws so heartbreakingly vibrant that even after we finish reading we can’t forget them.
09/01/2016
In a tiny Indian village, Anil and Leena are constant childhood companions in spite of their vastly different backgrounds. Anil, a member of the farming community's most important family, is destined for a prestigious medical residency in Dallas. Leena, the only daughter of a modest neighbor, will enter an arranged marriage she never expected. As traditional first-son responsibilities repeatedly bring Anil back to the ancestral home, finding balance between his past and future grows ever more difficult. Gowda's (Secret Daughter) resonating saga of two searching souls caught between cultures and clashing expectations finds the ideal narrator in Sunil Malhotra. He effortlessly embodies an impressive cast of characters irrespective of gender, age, or social background, on either side of the globe; his insider status as a South Asian American himself provides his reading with nuanced accuracy. He's just as versatile as a racist Texan, a privileged daddy's boy, and an Australian outback transplant, among many others. VERDICT Once again, Malhotra takes a good book and makes it that much better. Libraries in search of quality titles to diversify their fiction collections will do well to purchase.—Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC
Listeners hear the story of Anil Patel, who leaves his small village in India to become a doctor in the United States. Narrator Sunil Malhotra is superb with every voice and accent, whether male or female, Indian, American, or Australian. Malhotra captures each character’s voice perfectly as Anil faces culture shock, the extreme fatigue of medical school, and family expectations. His character portrayals bring out the humor, sadness, or danger of each situation. While each character’s voice is vibrantly expressive, Malhotra reads the narrative with a straightforward, unexpressive American accent. The contrast between vibrant speech and flat narrative is a somewhat distracting technique, as it’s obvious that Malhotra is fully capable of rendering complex emotions. M.M.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173488206 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 01/26/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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