A Life of Adventure and Delight

by Akhil Sharma

A Life of Adventure and Delight delivers eight masterful stories from dazzlingly original and critically acclaimed author Akhil Sharma. Hailed as a storyteller whose fiction is “a glowing work of art” ( Wall Street Journal ), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky” ( The Nation ). In A Life of Adventure and Delight , Sharma delivers eight masterful stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad and that plunge the reader into the unpredictable workings of the human heart. A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorcé tries to become the perfect partner by reading women’s magazines. A man’s longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. Tender and darkly comic, the protagonists in A Life of Adventure and Delight deceive themselves and engage in odd behaviors as they navigate how to be good, how to make meaningful relationships, and the strengths and pitfalls of self-interest. Elegantly written and emotionally immediate, the stories provide an intimate, honest assessment of human relationships between mothers and sons, sons and lovers, and husband and wives from a dazzlingly original, critically acclaimed writer.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, India, Literary Fiction, Indian Literature, Collections, Asia

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2017

About the author

Akhil Sharma was born in Delhi in India and emigrated to the USA in 1979. His stories have been published in the New Yorker and in Atlantic Monthly, and have been included in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Collections. His first novel, An Obedient Father, won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He was named one of Granta's 'Best of Young American Novelists' in 2007. His second novel, Family Life, won The 2015 Folio Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award 2016. Sharma is currently a Fellow at The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

In A Life of Adventure and Delight, Sharma delivers eight masterful stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad and that plunge the reader into the unpredictable workings of the human heart.

I started this short story collection a bit skeptical, since it took me nearly the whole day to finish reading just the first tale because I wasn't vibing with the characters, premise, or writing. A retired divorcé taking advice from Cosmopolitan to get into his neighbor's pants, while chronicling their confusing yet utterly ordinary relationship didn't grip me at all.

“He wondered if he was sadder than he knew.”

I went on with lowered expectations, thinking this would be a similar let down as Junot Diaz's This Is How You Lose Her, but the minuted I opened up the second story titled "Surrounded by Sleep," I was blown away from start to finish. What pulled me in particular was Ajay, the eleven-year-old protagonist at the heart of this tale. With his love for books, superhero comics, extreme superstitions and mind-expanding talks with God, it was as if the author knew exactly what to include to win me over. Also, the mother in the story was a sight to behold, especially when she used her devotion to "shame God into fixing" her oldest son.

“Are you going to tell me the story about Uncle Naveen again?” he asked.
“Why shouldn’t I? When I was sick, as a girl, your uncle walked seven times around the temple and asked God to let him fail his exams just as long as I got better.”
“If I failed the math test and told you that story, you’d slap me and ask what one has to do with the other.”
His mother turned to the altar.
“What sort of sons did you give me, God?” she asked. “One you drown, the other is this selfish fool.”
“I will fast today so that God puts some sense in me,” Ajay said, glancing away from the altar and up at his mother. He liked the drama of fasting.
“No, you are a growing boy.” His mother knelt down beside him and said to the altar, “He is stupid, but he has a good heart.”

Another point I unexpectedly came to cherish was Ajay's character growth and how immense it seemed over the course of this swift tale, so much so that I nearly forgot that he was still eleven by the end of it all. Truly wise beyond his years.

“He was having difficulty talking. He didn’t know why. The only time he could talk easily was when he was with God. The explanation he gave himself for this was that, just as he couldn’t chew when there was too much in his mouth, he couldn’t talk when there were too many thoughts in his head.”

Needless to say, I was spellbound by how captivating "Surrounded by Sleep" was compared to the impression left by the first one. Consequently, my expectations were raised a tenfold for the remaining collection.

So I was then sad to see that the remaining pieces didn't live up to what I'd so loved in the second story. Reading A Life of Adventure and Delight is probably the longest it has taken for me to complete a collection of short stories. I got stuck for days on end with a tale here and there, and in the end I just had to skip some pieces altogether to get the momentum back. I think my main problem was the fact that there wasn't one theme or arc being explored, unlike in my favorite "Surrounded by Sleep". Usually the tales started of in one way, only to end on a completely unrelated note, which of course led to numerous loose threads that left my mind spinning.

But I will say this: All the mothers in Akhil Sharma's short story collection were a force to be reckoned with. The author can write dynamic mother figures like no one's business, and I'm frankly jealous. So I was quite dismayed to see that A Life of Adventure and Delight didn't live up to my overall expectations in the end. But I am eager to see what Sharma's future works will entail.

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[Professor Weasel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I loved this book. Honestly, I'd take this kind of fiction over "quirky" magical bullshit any day. Akhil Sharma honestly puts that style of American writing to shame. It is unshowy, melancholy (think Bojack Horseman-style) and offers no cuddly reassurances about the "goodness" of humanity whatsoever. It is so quiet and realistic and everyday and sad. I think Akhil Sharma is very, very good. Especially when writing about sadness.

"Cosmopolitan" follows a man recently separated from his wife who falls in love with his neighbour and begins reading women's magazines (hence the title) in an attempt to woo her. This is maybe the happiest story on the book so you better fucking brace yourself because Akhil isn't shitting around. It's all downhill from here. YES.
"Being the lover of someone who had worked in a dry-cleaning business made Gopal feel strange. It made him think that the world was huge beyond comprehension, and to spend his time trying to control his own small world was insufficient." (35)

"Surrounded by Sleep" is basically an excerpt from the brilliant "Family Life," except written in the third person.
"Ajay was starting to understand that the world was always real, whether you were reading a book or sleeping, and that it eroded you every day." (59)

"We Didn't Like Him" is a great story about a man's dislike for his cousin unfolding over a long period of time. This story is a great example of how the short story form can use the compression of time to its advantage.
"Not long after her death, I went to Manshu's room with my parents. It smelled like it always had, of medicines and rubbing alcohol, of incense and cooking spices. The fact that nothing had changed felt wrong. It was confirmation that a horrible thing could occur and it would not matter." (71)

"If You Sing Like That For Me" i initially struggled with, maybe because it's the first story I've read by Sharma from a woman's point of view. But it slowly grew on me. Wow, what a sad ending.
"Perhaps love is different in other countries, I thought, where the climate is cooler, where a woman can say her husband's name, where the power does not go out every day, where not every clerk demands a bribe. That must be a different type of love, I thought, where one can be careless." (118)

"A Life of Adventure and Delight" is mental, and I love Sharma's use of a character that many people would find unlikeable, and the ambiguity of the title. It's pathetic, almost, rather than triumphant.
"The fact that this has happened to her made Gautama see her as being like any other person, someone with her own past, someone who needed love, who was scared and embarrassed, who had pulled out her own hair and was convinced that it had turned white because of this." (139)

"A Heart Is Such A Heavy Thing" is maybe my least favourite. Lots of characters and jumping around perspectives, which was a cool of risky thing to do. I love seeing writers break "rules" like "no abrupt shifting of POV durrrrr." I guess the ending of this one isn't too sad either, with the exception of the dad.
"The air smelled of coriander and wet green things." (156)

"You Are Happy?" WOW, what a story. I don't want to spoil it. Its examination of a depressed woman and what happens to her was really powerful for me.
"The occasional person walking across a road seemed like life going on, like life was always going to go on and so somewhere there was the possibility of things being different and happiness existing." (174)

"The Well" - Another gut puncher. Oh man. The combination of these last two really leave you in the wringer. I find Sharma's unflinching gaze in the face of failure, greed, and shame so badass. Not many other writers would be this brave in terms of examining sad, unfulfilled lives.
"I couldn't understand why she would have sex with me without a condom. The only possible explanation was that there was something in her that was weak and baffled, just like me." (193)

Recommend this, but I still think "Family Life" is the best place to start. Really want to read his debut now too.

[Nidhi Mahajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog.

The Improbability of Love: Akhil Sharma's A Life of Adventure and Delight

Akhil Sharma's A Life of Adventure and Delight is a collection of eight short-stories about Indians living in India and abroad. Woven together by the common themes of love and its improbability, grief, loneliness, the impossibility of connection, and the pursuit of happiness, the stories offer a glimpse into the codes that operate and govern individuals in society.

The stories quite often undercut the expectations set up by the title of the collection. The characters in the stories are neither invested in adventure nor are their lives particularly delightful. The stories are darkly comic with several shades of melancholia, dilemma, and contradiction.

Of Indians at home and abroad
The characters that inhabit the short-stories are Indians located in parts of India and abroad. They function according to certain social codes, many of which are part of the experience of growing up in India or inheriting Indian culture and value systems (which are diverse in themselves) through immigrant parents and family members. In the case of the latter, especially for second generation immigrants, social codes may often appear confusing and contradictory.

In the story 'Surrounded by Sleep', for example, young Ajay, who encounters grief and hopelessness with his brother's accident and paralysis, considers prayer-as-bargain to be a sly and confused way of appealing to a greater force. When Ajay is told that God can take any form, he begins to imagine Him as Clark Kent, only to be rebuked by his mother. The story highlights the many manipulative ways in which people attempt to please God and make Him listen to their prayers as well as the futility of it all. Ajay questions how chanting and burning incense can undo the three minutes of his brother's accident.

While characters located outside India (mostly in the West) have the agency to question the absurdity of certain social codes (perhaps because of their geographical and ideological distance), characters located in India are provided with lesser flexibility of thought (perhaps because of their proximity). In the story, 'We Didn't Like Him', the adult narrator comments, retrospectively, on the relationship he had with one of his cousins. He says,

"Since he belonged to my aunt's husband's family, we had to show him the respect due to a family that takes a daughter away."

The stories also provide a critical glimpse into social codes that are specific to gender, race, disability, caste, and class.

The pursuit of happiness
Irrespective of their location, the characters in the novel are in pursuit of happiness. In the story 'You Are Happy?', for instance, Lakshman muses,

"The occasional person walking across a road seemed like life going on, like life was always going to go on and so somewhere there was the possibility of things being different and happiness existing."

However, happiness is always short-lived and there is loneliness and grief have to be grappled with. In the story, 'If You Sing Like That for Me', the narrator-protagonist hums along to a song by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi which says that grief is no letter to be passed around to whoever wants to read. In other words, grief and loneliness are burdens to be borne alone.

Yet, there seems to be a shared understanding that one must suffer before one can love and be loved. 'Cosmopolitan', for example, tells the story of two divorcees, a man (Gopal) and a woman (Mrs. Shaw). Gopal believes that by following the relationship advice given in women's magazines, he will be able to make Mrs. Shaw fall in love with him. He imagines that they will connect easily (the magazine articles make attachment appear effortless) because both of them know what it means to suffer alone. He expects tears and recriminations but Mrs. Shaw gives him plain details of her divorce, making him apprehensive of their intimacy.

Such apprehensions also arise in the title story, 'A Life of Adventure and Delight'. Both the title story and 'Cosmopolitan' draw attention to how, in relationships, partners can know and trust each other only by narrating their stories, by revealing their strengths and vulnerabilities. However, the more one knows one's partner, the more they begin to appear as complicated and flawed as oneself.

The improbability of love
The stories, therefore, foreground that love, in all kinds of relationships, if often improbable. Love is neither black nor white but belongs to an inconsistent and feared grey area. This is a fact that we do not want to acknowledge, even to ourselves. The characters in these stories want to love but they don't know how or they find themselves unable to trust people enough to love them or they simply realize that love is fleeting by nature. The impossibility of sustained connection is emphasized time and again.

In the story 'If You Sing Like That for Me', the narrator-protagonist is a married woman who wakes up one day to find herself in love with her husband. Unable to trust her alcoholic father enough to love him, she invests her love in her husband whom she married in order to dispel her loneliness. She wonders what kind of love they could have. In the end, she is disappointed because her husband dares to remark on the grey-ness of love. He says,

"There are so many people in the world that it is hard not to think that there are others you could love more."

The grey-ness is also pointed out by the narrator in the story 'Cosmopolitan'. He remarks that it is, in fact, impossible to live with someone for a long period of time because if you know someone that well, you are bound to be disappointed. Moreover, love requires a certain suspension of belief.

I often find it difficult to review short-story collections because one has to treat the collection as a whole but also consider each short-story as an independently functioning universe. With Sharma's collection, this difficulty does not persist as the stories do have common themes and leitmotifs. So, while the characters may occupy seemingly distinct universes, Sharma employs them to lay bare human psyche in its raw form, stripping it of the veil of morality. He puts the unspoken—the cruelty of children and of adults, the tendency towards promiscuity, the desire to manipulate and control our partners, among other things—into words.

To conclude, the stories in this collection reveal that human beings function according to social codes in pursuit of happiness and love, in an attempt to rid themselves of loneliness and grief, but are only met with the improbability of love and the impossibility of sustained connection. As the narrator in 'Cosmopolitan' remarks,

"This is who we are. . . dusty, corroded, and dented from our voyages, with our unflagging hearts rattling on inside."
________________

A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma, published by Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin Random House India, 2017.

* This book was sent to me for review by the publisher through a review program coordinated by Vivek Tejuja of The Hungry Reader. The views expressed, however, are entirely my own.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 1 out of 5]

I violated my own rules for reading, #2, which was breached in the first short story. I plowed on and wished I hadn't. A lot of male writers try to tackle the plight of women in patriarchal societies and they just end up reproducing the very ideas that perpetuate it.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The simple prose and seemingly straightforward stories - an ostracised boy grows up, an immigrant in the US (from India) has an affair with his neighbour, an arranged marriage goes sour - are deceptive because all of the pieces here lead you down unexpected paths and trigger increasingly complex reactions in the reader (this one anyway). Things are not straightforward, the heart leads us away from the expected. I was impressed by the way the author handled shocking subjects, alcoholism, murder, illness, assault, quietly revealing motives and actions. Also well portrayed are the culture shock of the immigrant in America (a well worn theme I know, but executed here with a freshness) and the dreadful misogyny still at work in rural India. He doesn't put a foot wrong. Will now chase up his novels.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s a scene in this story that could have been the entire story: in the new Indian restaurant where the owner is telling his patrons to pay what they think is fair but is worried about the Indian customers paying nothing. The tension between Nirmala and Gautama about if he’d pay or not and if he'd disappoint her could carry an entire story and have wound up exploring a lot more about these characters.

However, we have to consider the story we’re given and not the story we wish it to be.

As for what we have, I’m not sure what I think about it. On the one hand there is an awful lot of telling and very little showing. I know that sounds like something you’re taught in a first year creative-writing class, but good writing comes from including the reader and allowing the reader to contribute, not forcing the reader to just accept what we’re told. In this way the story is poorly crafted. Just saying Nirmala is a good person doesn’t make it true, it just means the author isn’t working hard enough to let us come to that conclusion ourselves.

Also, why do "... many foreign students who are living away from home for the first time" loiter on Craigslist and Backpage? This is never explained. We’re just told this and it’s dropped as if we who aren’t foreigners are intuitively going to know the reason why. Yes I get it that a lot of foreigners might be trying to meet people from their own country, but this is not a problem for our main character, so it doesn’t fit here.

Yet this is not necessarily a bad story, either. There are some interesting ideas floating around, but, unfortunately, we never get to explore them deeply. The most obvious theme is that of value and acceptance. We’re told about how the dowry is still a thing in India, how Gautama pays for sex (and haggles with the girls), how the restaurant owner leaves it up to his guests to figure out what the worth of his services are. Freedom is another theme explored, first with his being taken away when he’s arrested, and later when the prostitute at the end is both free and enslaved (her jumping up and down naked while he holds her breasts is both liberating and shameful somehow).

My biggest gripe is that we just never explore any one thing in great depth. The author wants to tell so much story that we’re actually given very little meal to eat. That’s why I wish the author had been more focused and narrowed the story down to just a scene at the restaurant. We still could have learned about his buying of prostitutes, about his epileptic sister, about his relationship with Nirmala, all while being much more immersed in Indian culture (a culture foreign to most people reading this story and whom I’m positive the author wants to educate us about).

All-in-all this is a good draft of a story, but it’s not clear what it really wants to tell us about these characters. We learn very little about Nirmala as a character other than she’s kind and normally self-conscious. And we learn even less about Gautama because even though we’re given a lot of information about him, we don’t really see him as a fully fleshed out character. Just because he likes sex and is having a hard time with his parents and girlfriend does not a unique character make - he’s like everyone else.

And in being like everyone else is where we do get this story’s only possible success. Change the race to a couple of white kids and this would literally be the most boring story on earth, but because the character’s are Indian we get to see them as being normal, as not being “Indian” but as being regular People (capital “P”) like everyone else. It shouldn’t be important that they’re Indian, it should only matter that they’re People, and in how boring these characters are the author succeeds in showing us any culture can be boring and have many of the same issues.

But that’s not enough to save this story because I never felt like the author was implicitly trying to make that point. In fact the ending could (and I say could because I just want to explore this possibility and not because I’m sure I fully believe it) be read as racist where the only happy prostitute is the black prostitute. She’s made to jump up and down like a National Geographic video with her breasts bouncing up and down as he touches them and she smiles. He’s literally bought a black person for sex and she likes it. So any ideas of racial equality are thrown right out the window. With so much of the story about the value we place on things, this could be read as a very loaded image.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Life of Adventure and Delight is a collection of stories all surrounding Indian protagonists living their every day lives. On the surface this seems very humanitarian and a great piece to represent the human condition, particularly for a group of people who are underrepresented in American literature.

With that being said, this entire collection is pretty much exclusively about sexual repression and how our main characters make decisions (that aren't necessarily the greatest) based on lust. Everyone is sexually frustrated and reacts to it in varying ways, but fundamentally? They're all trying to get their rocks off.

[David J · Rating 2 out of 5]

You should really just read Jhumpa Lahiri instead.

More to come.

[Devika Rajeev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stories into this collection of short stories, I was wondering why Akhil Sharma had decided to call it 'A Life of Adventure and Delight'*. Because none of the protagonists of the first four stories seem to find their lives either adventurous or delightful. On the contrary, they are all stuck in situations they don't want to be in.

The first story ("Cosmopolitan") is a gentle one, it floats along like a boat in a slow-moving river. Gopal, intensely lonely after his wife leaves him, starts a relationship with his neighbour, Mrs Shaw. He doesn't know much about her apart from that she's a divorcee and a guidance counselor. His motives for the relationship seem clear, but what are hers? Why is she interested in this obviously pathetic man?

From questioning HER motives, the reader moves on to questioning anybody's motives for entering into a relationship. What loneliness or need drives anybody into being emotionally dependent on somebody else?

By the end of the story, all doubts are laid to rest. Or maybe that's my positive spin on the ending.

This is who we are, he thought--dusty, corroded, and dented from our voyages, with our unflagging hearts rattling on inside. We are made who we are by the dust and corrosion and dents and unflagging hearts. Why should we need anything else to fall in love?

The second story ("Surrounded by Sleep"), on the other hand, is a breathless one. It starts by knocking the reader's breath out:

One August afternoon, when Ajay was ten years old, his elder brother, Birju, dove into a pool and struck his head on the cement bottom. For three minutes, he lay there unconscious. Two boys continued to swim, kicking and splashing, until finally Birju was spotted below them. Water had entered through his nose and moth. It had filled his stomach. His lungs had collapsed. By the time he was pulled out, he could no longer think, talk, chew, or roll over in his sleep.

And throughout the story both you and Ajay are haunted by those three minutes. What if they had found Birju a little earlier? What if he just woke up from his coma and returned to normal? What if Ajay could pray harder and tell God to make Birju normal again? What if what if what if?

It's a heart-breaking story, but less for Birju's mishap and more for its effect on Ajay. His mother starts emotionally distancing herself from him, he feels that somehow what happened to Ajay was his fault, he thinks his mother sometimes wishes it was Ajay who lay for three minutes at the bottom of the pool, and not Birju.

The fourth story ("If You Sing Like That For Me") was the highlight of the collection for me. It starts with a woman waking up after an afternoon nap, seven months after her wedding day, suddenly in love with her husband.

Her marriage is like any other arranged marriage. She met her husband once before she got married, and she only got to know him afterwards. The first couple of days, she dreams of going back to her parents.

I would think of myself with his smallness forever, bearing his children, going where he went, having to open always to his touch, and whatever I was looking at would begin to waver, and I would want to run. Run down the curving dark stairs, fast, fast, through the colony's narrow streets, with my sandals loud and alone ... and finally I would climb the wooden steps to my parents' flat and the door would be open and no one would have noticed that I had gone with some small man.

The evening of the day she realizes she is in love with her husband, her husband comes home carrying a plastic bag of mangoes. It is just another day as far as he is concerned. But for Anita and for the reader, the evening builds up like a time bomb. Will she tell him of her love, will she won't? How will she tell him? How can she ensure the love stays?

The other stories, all shorter than these, didn't make much of an impression on me. In fact, I had to go back and refer the book to remember what they were about.

But the three main stories more than make this collection worth it. All the stories are in the spare distilled prose that Akhil Sharma is famous for. Five out of the eight stories are set in the US, but most of the characters are thoroughly Indian.

(Though sometimes they do strike a jarring note with American usage. Here's an example from Anita's story, set in India - "I made rotis and lentils on a kerosene stove." #Okay)

*It turned out that the collection is named after one of the later short stories.

[Jatan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short collection of Akhil Sharma's earliest stories, almost (?) all of which have been previously published.

I remember reading the titular story, the protagonist's life being referred to is a grad student at NYU, here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20... before I started grad school and having heard instances of some acquaintances from undergrad (from fairly diverse backgrounds, I might add) who'd gone down this route already, I was definitely intrigued.

Several other noteworthy stories:
'Cosmopolitan' : https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

'If You Sing Like That for Me' :https://electricliterature.com/a-stor... and Akhil's own take on why he hates his best short story: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/per...

It was nice to 'read' some fiction for a change, especially the kind that revolve around themes of earnestness and insecurity in love; mental health; the role of societal dogma that changes (or doesn't) a person over time; how immigrant communities cope with loss, and other subtle aspects of the human condition.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed these stories very much! Thanks Goodreads for the Advance Copy.

[John Pinto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Akhil Sharma’s new book “A Life of Adventure and Delight” is a collection of eight short stories whose protagonists are Indians living home and abroad. This is Akhil Shamra’s third book while his first two “An Obedient Father” and “Family Life” garnered much appreciation among readers.
When you are into a few pages of the book, you would probably be thinking if the title is an oxymoron to the life lead by the lead characters but still Akhil Sharma’s vivid charater potrayal seems to carry the stories forward without any impediments. Each character is potrayed briefly and Akhil Sharma’s stories opens its world to us in our minds making its impact. Akhil Sharma’s book has theme runnning around love, sickness, realtionships, depression, alcoholism, families and other life threads. The intricate details of how the customs of Indian who grew up in a world so different from the world of others, their social orders, inheritance of their culture in a confused world seems to be captured well. The story which I liked most was “Surrounded by Sleep” where Ajay who is young is in a world of grief with accident of his brother begins to imagine God as Superman when told that God can take any form. His inner questions with faith and the confusions he gets really gets into us in realising his thoughts.This particularly story was really touching and would move the readers away.Every character in the story aspires for happiness shedding behind the grief and lonliness they are always connected with. However in the passages to come, he also strongly utters that happiness is short lived, grief and lonliness are to be accepted as they are. The connection between every characters are unique. The narration is simple without an hassle and engages us pretty well into the book. The plot setting, characters, narration are seamless and would ensure a good read for the readers. Neverthless the book gives us the satisfaction of reading a wonderful book. Go read the book and enjoy.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book in the mail by the author. I had a great time reading this book. I enjoyed reading from the POV of people who live in a different culture. I learned so much about Indian culture and especially about the difficulty of immigrating to a different country. Every character was so perfectly different. It's incredible how the author wrote such short stories for each of the characters, but I felt that they were fully developed. I loved every person individually and didn't want the book to end. Usually, I stick to my typical genres: fantasy and adventure. This was a refreshing difference to my shelf. I look forward to looking into what other inspiring works this author has.

[Krithikaa Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories that highlight toxic masculinity in Indian / Asian men in a spectacular manner . The women in these stories are treated as property , as things of ridicule , pity and are solely defined by their connection to the men they relate to .

These stories were very triggering but somewhere down the line I realized that may be the author wanted to show these men for what they were : selfish , self-absorbent , uncaring and vile.

Favorite Story : If you sing like that for me . It is also the only story that was narrated from a female POV .

Favorite Story : Surrounded by Sleep .

[Bridgett Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.
A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorcé tries to become the perfect partner by reading women’s magazines. A man’s long-standing contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. This book was a good read. it's a couple of stories in one book.

[Sruthi Narayanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a story featuring Oak Tree Road in NJ when I'd just been there less than 24 hours prior was really special :) Gorgeous, thoughtful collection - "Surrounded By Sleep," "You Are Happy?", and "We Didn't Like Him" were personal standouts.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are, in a sense, ordinary slices of life, simply written. That simplicity is deceptive. These are subtle, with depth despite the plain, straightforward language. This was good.

[Jonathan Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A culture shock of a book, each tale hitting harder than the last

Beyond good, beyond impactful. No real violence or crime or anything like that, but be warned - these are intense tales.

There is little to no violence, or anything like that. There isn't really any overt conflict - but man are the forces there.

The hidden plight of the Middle and Upper Middle Class Indian

An Indian engineer once told me a joke:

There are two parts of an Indian's life. The first: become an engineer. The second: decide what you really want to do with your life.

Akhil Sharma hits this sentiment from the reverse angle with his first tale, perhaps the softest of the group - but still intense.

Engineer Gautama has a house in America, and a retirement pension from AT&T.

Then his wife leaves him to return to India, and his daughter leaves to live with her boyfriend in Germany.

Now what?

Sharma eases his readers into the collection with this medium-intensity tale, but the impact is still solid.

And then the real impact comes

Again, Sharma has no violence, or crime, or anything like that. He doesn't have any real conflict even - just a few words here and there, a few actions.

But when they come, they knock you over.

He has the talent of Sherman Alexie but holds the intensity of Dani Shapiro.

You keep reading because of the former, and then have to take a break because of the latter.

But he brings it. I'd take one of these tales at a time to see how you respond - but be sure to check this book out. It's incredible.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always with short story collections, it's a bit of a mixed bag. "If You Sing Like That For Me" was by far my favourite while "Cosmopolitan" and "A Heart Is Such A Heavy Thing" fell flat. The others were somewhat interesting but not quite fleshed out. Sharma's writing is mellow and easy to read but has a distinct lonely/repressed undertone. It was educational to examine Indian cultural norms/values from the perspective of 8 vastly different stories - tho I'm not sure how faithful these portrayal were.

[Alicia Delory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is masterfully written. The writing itself is done with such beautiful simplicity, yet the complexity and impact of the stories themselves is just mind blowing. I enjoyed this book so much and would highly recommend.

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma contains eight stories that deal with a continually changing mosaic of relationships. It’s peopled with diverse characters from different milieus, both within India and abroad, from a newly wedded couple to a young boy who has a brain-dead sibling. We see human beings striving to achieve normalcy no matter what life throws at them, from separations to life changing events. But each person’s version of a normal life is dramatically different.

Each story in this book has an undercurrent of despair running through. These are not typical stories with a conventional beginning and end. They are vignettes from seemingly ordinary lives which are however rife with peculiarities and eccentricities. It’s like we are whirled along on a magic carpet, which lingers at certain doorways and allows us a glimpse of the lives within. Scenes from myriad lives are revealed which are by turns tender, poignant, bitter and nostalgic. The author gives us an intimate view of people and the unique ways in which they navigate through the shoals of life.

In ‘Cosmopolitan’, Gopal who is recently separated from his wife desperately tries to get back his confidence in himself by befriending the neighbor. His dependence on a popular magazine to help him deal with the changes in his circumstance reflects the utter loneliness hidden in modern life. The rest of the stories move through a grim landscape that has children and adults grappling with dilemmas that may seem trivial to an outsider but which is vital for them.

There are two stories featuring newly weds, ‘If You Sing Like That For Me’ and ‘A Heart Is Such A Heavy Thing’. Anita, the protagonist in the former, is from a middle class family that has its own hidden fault lines linked to a death in the family and a father addicted to alcohol. She reconciles herself to her marriage without many expectations. Hence she is surprised when she finds herself in love with her husband. “I will love Rajinder slowly and carefully and cunningly, I thought, and suddenly felt peaceful again, as if I were a lake and the world could only form ripples on my surface, while the calm beneath continued in solitude.” Arun, a bridegroom in the latter story gets a wife who refuses to be fettered by preconceived notions. She is definitely not a rebel, but with her naïve honesty she brings an unexpected freshness into their lives.

‘Surrounded by Sleep’, and ‘You Are Happy?’ were the most difficult to read mainly because it had children as protagonists. The desperate desire that children have, to get their lives on an even keel is heart-rending, especially when the outcome is bleak. Akhil Sharma has been able to capture the emotions in a child’s mind very accurately. When his brother Birju meets with a crippling accident, Ajay prays to his God who has the face and figure of Superman. It’s a tiny detail but it shows how correctly the author interprets the thought processes of children. “At some point, Ajay began to cry. He tried to be quiet. He did not want his parents to notice his tears and think that he was crying for Birju, because in reality he was crying for how difficult his own life was.”

Akhil Sharma’s narration is beautiful and it’s difficult to remain unaffected by his words. The stories appear suspended in a strange time zone, which is neither too modern nor too ancient. This is not a book that should be read quickly. Each story will make you pause and ruminate. My only gripe with this collection is that I would have liked a sense of closure to some of the stories.

[Douglas Lord · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I only read one of the eight short stories included in Sharma’s book. It was the first one, “Cosmopolitan,” about a retired, gentleman widower of Indian heritage who is lonely and sort of lost. An encounter with his pretty, divorced neighbor Mrs. Shaw leads him to a relationship with her, to growth, change, and adapting from being something like a hermit to someone who enjoys life. It’s a story of subtlety, of culture, of values, almost frightening in its intimacy with a vulnerable man. He’s sweet, curious, and did I mention lonely? The story has a little bit of everything, the kind of story you could read once a year and pick up some nuance or feel and reconnect in a new way. Remarkable. More disclosure: I lied before, I actually read all the stories and they are all pretty damned remarkable. It’s important for dudes to read a variety of materials. Thrillers, manuals on setting up network routers, Beekeeping for Dummies, all of it. On those lists make sure you have books like this, by writers who keenly sense the human condition and can present it in a way that can grow you as a human being. VERDICT Wonderful stuff.

Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.

[Weepli · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first problem with Akhil Sharma’s A life of Adventure and Delight is the cover. It’s supposed to be the colours of the rainbow but is loud, glaring and hurts the eye. A collection of eight short stories, the book attempts to delve into complex relationships and ideas of familiarity and comfort.

Most of the premises were clichéd and have been explored multiple times. A girl falling in love with her husband, an elderly man finding comfort in his neighbor, a family trying to cope with trauma-nothing new about all of them. I like that Sharma writes a lot about the immigrant experience-of the loneliness and the unfamiliarity of a different country but unfortunately in this collection, he brings nothing new to the table. (I’m especially surprised that one of the stories is an abridged version of Sharma’s earlier novel Family Life. While the novel and this short story are pleasant to read, the addition of this story further gives me the feeling of “I have read this already”).

Most of the stories start off well. I want to know how they end, I’m invested in the lives of the characters and in the plot. They all seem like they have something substantial to say. I like the dialogues and I like the subtle humour that comes with the lines. There are sudden bits that make you laugh, they creep up on you when you least expect it and make the characters seem even more relatable.

Unfortunately the style cannot cover up essential issues with the text-the fact that the plots are overdone. The motives of characters are not well-explored. I don’t really know why a character is doing a certain action, how are they feeling etc. There is a huge build up to a climax in every story, but the climax lets me down each time.

Personally, the writing and the characters stay true to the emotions and that’s what makes this book work for me. Overall an interesting read and a good insight into human relationships.

[Kavita Das · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories I loved best linger in my mind the way a song becomes an earworm, especially their vividly drawn characters, likable and unlikable. However, some of the other stories were a bit lackluster or even repetitive of previous ones. I hate ratings but a more precise one from me would be 3.5 because the good stories are quite good.

Here's one of my favorite passages from one of Sharma's stories, Cosmopolitan:
"The station wagon stood battered and alone, smelling faintly of gasoline and the day's heat. Gopal leaned against its hood. The station wagon was so old that the odometer had gone all the way around. Like me, he thought, and like Helen, too. This is who we are, he thought - dusty, corroded, and dented from our voyages, with our unflagging hearts rattling on inside. We are made who we are by the dust and corrosion and dents and unflaggig hearts. Why should we need anything else to fall in love? he wondered. We learn and change and get better. He leaned against the car for a minute or two. Fireflies swung flickering in the breeze. Then he walked home."

[Myrna Gottlieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Akhil Sharma is a master of his craft, and this collection of short stories does not disappoint. Two of the stories are reworkings of stories I had already read in the New Yorker- same theme but a different presentation with a different ending- the boy from Delhi, whose family had relocated to the US; his older brother, the family's pride and joy, hit his head in a swimming pool and suffered irreversible brain damage ( this story is from Sharma's own life); and the story of the boy from Delhi, whose family had relocated to the US; his lonely, homesick mother became a horrific, incurable alcoholic. The boy's father sent her back to her family in India, who murdered her just two days later because of the disgrace.

Indian culture, tradition,, religious beliefs, and above all the importance of family are revealed in Sharma's work. And he writes with heart.

[Sowmya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akhil Sharma's writings are hands down, one of my favorites, right among Jhumpa Lahiri and Ruskin Bond, although I like them all for entirely different reasons.

This short story collection is both wonderful and unsatisfying. The rawness in characters and situations, their simplicity, yet complex life situations and the predictability of the weird unpredictability in life and the glimpses of several Indian lives left me wanting for more. Short stories are cruel that way.

[Ted H. Hazard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Depressing

This is a well written book, but it dwells on the unpleasant side of Indian culture. There is nothing adventuresome or delightful about these short stories. They all are depressing.

[Enrique · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the worst book I have ever read and all the stories were basically the same and the characters and every story had no ending to it which left you wondering why you even read it.

[Sameer Gudhate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Life of Adventure and Delight" by Akhil Sharma is a collection of eight exquisite stories that offer a window into the intricacies of human emotions and relationships. With an enchanting narrative voice, Sharma explores the lives of Indian protagonists both at home and abroad, delving into the unpredictable landscapes of the heart.

In this masterful collection, Sharma presents a range of characters facing unique situations. From a woman discovering love in an arranged marriage to a man reevaluating his contempt for a cousin, the stories encapsulate moments of self-deception, odd behaviours, and the quest for meaningful connections.

Sharma's writing is an artistry that captivates from the outset. His prose is elegant and emotionally charged, drawing readers into the depths of each character's psyche. The stories are painted with precision, evoking vivid imagery and delving into the complexities of the human experience.

Sharma's characters are multifaceted and relatable. They grapple with inner conflicts and engage in introspection, making their journeys resonate deeply. The author's exploration of human idiosyncrasies and desires lends a layer of authenticity to the stories.

The collection's stories vary in tone and theme, yet each is masterfully crafted. The plots are engaging and offer unexpected twists that keep the reader engrossed. The structure seamlessly guides readers through the emotional landscapes of the characters.

At the heart of the book are themes of self-discovery, relationships, and the intricacies of human behaviour. Sharma delves into the strengths and vulnerabilities of self-interest, delivering profound insights into the human condition.

The stories strike an emotional chord, as readers are led to empathize with the characters' struggles and triumphs. Sharma's ability to evoke emotions through his storytelling is a testament to his mastery.

The collection's strength lies in Sharma's evocative writing and his skillful portrayal of human nuances. However, some stories may leave readers yearning for a deeper exploration of certain themes.

"A Life of Adventure and Delight" is a gem of storytelling. Sharma's ability to blend tenderness with dark humour creates a captivating read that lingers in the mind long after the book is finished.

In "A Life of Adventure and Delight," Akhil Sharma has curated a collection that showcases his narrative finesse. The stories are a testament to the author's insight into the human heart, rendering them relatable, emotionally resonant, and undeniably impactful. This collection is a literary treasure that explores the depths of human connections and emotions with an artistry that leaves an indelible mark on its readers.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was nothing short of absolutely phenomenal. When I went to see David Sedaris do a reading from his books in 2019, one of the books he was selling after the show was this collection by the very talented Akhil Sharma. He talked about how deeply flawed and human each of the characters in these stories was, and gave a brief recounting of one of the stories in the collection, in which a sad, middle-aged Indian man living in America had just gotten divorced from his wife. He strikes up a sexual fling over one summer with his lonely neighbor, and he mistakenly believes that the encounter means more than it does, seeing it as his ticket to lifelong happiness, a new marriage and everlasting love. We the reader understand the nature of the situation but our hapless narrator does not.

Many of these protagonists are deluded in sad but all too human ways. Some of them I wanted to punch in the face at times, while others I just simply felt pity for--but every single one of them was absolutely fascinating to read about. There's not a single story in here that I didn't find completely captivating, and these are mundane slice-of-life stories, not exciting tales of heroism or adventure. But how incredibly good they are.

One story is about a boy whose older brother becomes brain dead after nearly drowning in a swimming pool, and he becomes resentful of never measuring up to his brother who is now forever captured in his parents' memory in an undying snapshot of perfection. Some of these stories are about loveless marriages. Some are about young boys who strive to measure up to expectations or young men who flail aimlessly through life and are completely blind to their own self-imposed limitations. Sharma has an incredible gift for getting you into the head of his protagonists and making you empathize with them, even when their behavior is incredibly frustrating.

About half of the stories take place in the United States and half in India, but all of the protagonists are Indian, and I found it incredibly interesting to see the world through the lens of Indian culture in the way these characters interacted with the world around them.

I would never have learned of this book if not for David Sedaris and his very welcome recommendation. These stories are a treasure that I am immensely grateful to have discovered, and I give this book my highest possible recommendation in the hopes that it leads someone reading this review to the same delightful treasure that I myself was led to.