Family Life (Sharma) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. The novel opens in the present, when Ajay is forty and his parents are elderly. How does this opening affect your experience of the rest of the novel, which takes place during Ajay’s childhood?

2. America is marvelous to the Mishra family at first. If tragedy hadn’t struck, do you think that America would have met the Mishras’ expectations for it? Or do you think that at least certain elements of their disillusionment were inevitable?

3. How does the Mishras’ status as immigrants affect their experience of Birju’s accident? How might their lives following the accident have played out differently if they weren’t strangers in a strange land?

4. What do you make of Ajay’s conversations with God following his brother’s accident? Describe the God that Ajay invents for himself. How does his God help him, and how doesn’t he? Can you pinpoint the moment in the novel when Ajay stops talking to God?

5. Describe the process by which Ajay becomes a writer. How does writing change the way he experiences his childhood?

6. In the aftermath of Birju’s accident, Ajay’s mother turns to religion and his father to alcohol. How are these two coping mechanisms different? Do you think they have anything in common? Do you think that Ajay’s own way of coping—academic success—has anything in common with his parents?

7. Did you find moments in Family Life funny, despite its darkness? What kind of humor does the novel possess?

8. Describe the prose style in Family Life. What do you think the author achieves through the candor and lack of sentimentality in his storytelling?

9. On the second anniversary of his brother’s accident, Ajay thinks, "I couldn’t believe that everything had changed because of three minutes" (page 129). What do you make of this? How does the brevity of the accident itself affect your experience of the passage of time in the novel, which takes place over many years? Has your own life ever changed so drastically, so quickly?

10. Compare and contrast the scenes when the family is awaiting news of Ajay’s college acceptances to the scenes when they are awaiting news of Birju’s high school acceptance.

11. Describe Ajay’s love life in high school and beyond. What is he seeking from his girlfriends? In what ways is he being honest with them, and in what ways, dishonest? How are his relationships with women affected by his experience with his brother? His experience as an immigrant? Describe some of your own high school relationships.

12. Family Life ends in a moment of ambiguity. "I got happier and happier," Ajay says. "In the distance was the beach and the breaking waves and the red seaplane bobbing in the water. The happiness was almost heavy. And that was when I knew I had a problem" (page 218). What is it about this moment and about Ajay’s happiness that tells him he has a problem? How would you describe his problem? Do you think he’ll ever escape or solve it?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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