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Thinking About Leaving
Sachin wrote these short stories in the year between applying to become an American citizen and becoming one. They go back and forth between life in the United States and growing up in India, the incongruities of what the American dream promised and what was delivered, and passively observing his life vs trying to make something of it.
"Sachin Benny’s impressive debut collection of autobiographical shorts is at once restful and unsettling; viscerally present and contemplatively distant. The stories are eventful, sometimes even adventuresome, yet have a surreal stillness to them. They are firmly situated in time and place, deftly suspended between impressions of contemporary Texas and memories of Kerala, yet have an otherworldly energy to them. They eschew conceptual conceits, but you sense the bones of an evolving underlying philosophy of worldliness. Readers familiar with Indian writing will sense a certain kinship with a tradition of unflinching observation and spare prose whose exponents include R. K. Narayan, Pico Iyer, Khushwant Singh, and V. S. Naipaul. What perhaps distinguishes Sachin’s voice is a sense of serene and compassionate involvement in the world that shines through, including what is perhaps hardest to achieve — compassionate involvement with oneself that is neither narcissistic, nor self-indulgent. A sensibility that is perhaps critical to living well in a weird world" - Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm, Contraptions
"Sachin's essays are a languorous tour through humid expanses where you probably should have driven but decided to walk anyway. Set in the overlapping zone between postmodern Texas and an India of childhood memory, he approaches underused public spaces, bureaucratic quagmires, and awkward hangs with the levity only available to a spiritual outsider. His writing makes a strong case, though, that it's better to be an outsider than not be in on the joke." - Drew Austin, Kneeling Bus
"Sachin Benny’s impressive debut collection of autobiographical shorts is at once restful and unsettling; viscerally present and contemplatively distant. The stories are eventful, sometimes even adventuresome, yet have a surreal stillness to them. They are firmly situated in time and place, deftly suspended between impressions of contemporary Texas and memories of Kerala, yet have an otherworldly energy to them. They eschew conceptual conceits, but you sense the bones of an evolving underlying philosophy of worldliness. Readers familiar with Indian writing will sense a certain kinship with a tradition of unflinching observation and spare prose whose exponents include R. K. Narayan, Pico Iyer, Khushwant Singh, and V. S. Naipaul. What perhaps distinguishes Sachin’s voice is a sense of serene and compassionate involvement in the world that shines through, including what is perhaps hardest to achieve — compassionate involvement with oneself that is neither narcissistic, nor self-indulgent. A sensibility that is perhaps critical to living well in a weird world" - Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm, Contraptions
"Sachin's essays are a languorous tour through humid expanses where you probably should have driven but decided to walk anyway. Set in the overlapping zone between postmodern Texas and an India of childhood memory, he approaches underused public spaces, bureaucratic quagmires, and awkward hangs with the levity only available to a spiritual outsider. His writing makes a strong case, though, that it's better to be an outsider than not be in on the joke." - Drew Austin, Kneeling Bus
91 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 31, 2024
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