The Limits of the World Lib/E

by Jennifer Acker

Spanning four generations and three continents, Acker brings us the story of the Chandarias: Sunil, a struggling philosophy doctoral candidate, and his parents Urmila and Premchand.

Sunil's sudden marriage to his Jewish American girlfriend Amy compels a tumultuous family reunion in Nairobi, his parents' birthplace. After learning a long-buried family secret, and enduring a severe trauma, Sunil and Amy try to sustain their love as they wrestle with the weight of difference.

With utmost respect for an endless mosaic of cultural divisions, Acker brings a stunning empathy to the limits that prevent us from truly understanding the people we are closest to.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, India, Novels, Family, Cultural

Audio CD

First published April 16, 2019

About the author

Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common. Her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Guernica, The Yale Review, and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and organizes LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. The Limits of the World is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Alena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is a deep and complex look at immigration, identity, family and philosophy. It's well written and really smart; it also introduced me a new population - Indian transplants in Somalia. There were references to the man-eating lions and Tsavo, a story I know from frequent trips to Chicago's Field Museums. And there are plenty of big ideas to chew upon.

All of that is to say I should have liked it more than I did. It's good, strong writing about topics I love to read. But I didn't like the main characters - I liked their stories, but not them. That dislike prevented me from truly engaging.

Ultimately, I admired this book more than I liked it, but I would certainly read this author again.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of a difficult book to review for me. It’s a terrifically written and very ambitious fictional debut, unquestionably. That the entire experience has been sort of frustrating for me because I so strongly disliked one of the main characters just seems…like a sort of pedestrian aside. And yet…there it is. So then I figured I’ll just review separate aspects of the book, of which so many are so very good. This is an immigrant story first and foremost, it’s about belonging or not belonging within a community, family, country. The immigrant family here are Kenyan Indians as in people from India who have moved to Nairobi and created an enclave for themselves back when both countries were under British control. In fact, there is a narrative story that provides a historical record of this and it was for me by far the best, most interest aspect of the book. I learned something new. I wasn’t aware of the Indian community in Kenya nor how they lived, their lives in fact comparable to the Jewish plot in prewar Europe, which is to say there were given no land so they turned to commerce and their success in business enterprises have led to the resentment by the locals. But essentially these were people without a country…they didn’t think they had the opportunities back in India, Kenya wasn’t especially welcoming (there was no political representation for them, etc.) and once the British left, they didn’t really want their Indian subjects to follow. So it must have been insanely difficult to live that way and yet…the community seems to have managed. But at the center of this story is one family that immigrated again, this time to America and about how they did or did not adjust to that. All radical adjustments like that are difficult, but it seems to me that is especially the case when one comes from a very traditional i.e. restrictive i.e. backward culture. The second generation Americanizes and does great, but the first generations…it’s just too difficult. Especially for Urmila, wife, mother, business owner…and the character I positively loathed. And the thing is the book centers on her, it goes to great lengths to describe her thought processes and explain her behaviors, but in the end of the day she’s emotionally distant, unpleasant, difficult, unable or unwilling to adapt and especially a failure at being a wife, mother and business owner. So much so that the end of the book sees her returning to Nairobi just so she can be once again among the familiar ways of life. I suppose her son (well, both of them) are the successes of the story, because what Urmila represents doesn’t bode well for women or immigrants or even people in general. Her self pity, the learned helpless quality, the unreasonable stubbornness are extremely offputting. The fact that she goes back to Nairobi (where someone close to her has recently been butchered on the street for no reason), the fact that anyone would move from US to Kenya is just further prove of her lack of reason. Ok, but aside from that…there were other, much more compelling, likeable and interesting characters in this book. There were terrific descriptions, fascinating historical facts, very emotionally engaging dramatic writing. The story of Sunil (the son) and his white Jewish American wife that so threw his mother was in fact, great, a realistically done representation of modern young family. The cultural juxtapositions were very well done. And the book had something of an epic quality to it, spinning several generations and continents. It read like one too, the page count is listed at 250 and either that’s off or it’s the longest 250 page fictional book I’ve read, it seemed way longer than that. Overall, well done and interesting, but some readers might find it too heavy and slow. From the afterword it seemed like the author might have utilizes some personal experiences for this book, which is possibly what gave it such a realistic quality. Thanks Netgalley.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand I liked it but on the other hand, I was left wanting more. What I mean by this is that while I liked the location and the concept for the story; I was left wanting for that strong, human, emotional connection towards the characters. I briefly felt this in the beginning for the first couple of chapters but afterwards, there was nothing.

The storyline was good. I am not taking that away from this book. It was the characters. None of their voices really stood out to me. They kind of just melded together. Which in turn may this story be where it could be about any family. I did finish this book. However, I honestly could not really give you specific details about any point in time in the story.

[Jypsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Limits Of The World unfortunately fell short of what I expected. It's an intriguing premise, and the story is informative in some aspects. In other ways, however, the story is dull and lacking a spark. It's good but not great. I wouldn't read it again. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Jen Hinst-White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved THE LIMITS OF THE WORLD for its intriguing characters and graceful writing, but what I'll remember most is the unusual risks this book takes--and how the author pulls them off. For one, there's the ambitious dive into a community and its history (the Indian community in Nairobi) that I've never seen represented in fiction. For another, there are the sections framed as an audio recording of oral history, told by a grandfather, which are absorbing and vivid.

Another big risk, and one well worth it: the author's choice to include a character that many readers WON'T find "likable." A big part of what this book is grappling with is whether family members from different generations, raised in different cultures, can possibly find a way to understand each other, or even communicate love and belonging. The deeper I traveled into THE LIMITS OF THE WORLD, the more I was challenged to consider WHY Urmila might communicate the way she does--and, by extension, think about bigger questions about how families try (and often fail) to reach each other, and what we can/should expect (or at least hope) from the people we love. (That seems like a vitally relevant question, actually, at this moment in U.S. history when many families are deeply split by politics and culture.)

I like a book to challenge me, and this one did--not only in that respect, but by including a character (Sunil) who's grappling with big philosophical ideas. If you enjoy a good combination of big ideas, being transported to another place/time, and complex family drama, this novel delivers.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant

[Seema Rao · Rating 1 out of 5]

Orientalist ~ Academic ~ Thorough

tl;dr: family extends over continents and generations

This book was well-written if without much emotion. I couldn't point to a particular sentence out of whack or any stylistic problem. However, it was devoid of feeling. The characters felt sort of wooden, like someone knew their story from research but didn't know how to make them breathe. There was so much that could have been good in this book. It's ambition was to be like Allende or Lahiri, but instead it was like an exercise in strong, boring writing. I do also wonder if the author had any person connection to her subject. Her only character that had any emotional weight was a white academic who was in a relationship with the Indian-American character. I wondered if that was her, and why she could do that character some justice. Overall, not worth the effort to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about the (Asian) Indian community in Kenya centering around a young, American-born Harvard PhD candidate who marries a Jewish girl (though it's not really significant that she's Jewish) and tries to reconcile with his mother who is unwilling to accept his wife or any of his life choices. I knew nothing about the Indian community in east Africa and definitely learned a lot but the story was a little boring at times and some of the characters weren't developed enough to be sympathetic or likable. Both audio-book narrators were excellent with authentic sounding accents and pronunciations (at least to my ears!)

[Gily · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 and a half stars. Listen to the audio book. Liked both readers. Like the brothers, father and grandfather stories except I was pissed off when the father story ended especially when it started to be interesting. Hate the mother, didn’t understand her character and what make here so nasty and so righteous.

[Mel Raschke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an examination of family ties, and family secrets, spanning many continents.

[Debbie Maskus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Limits of the World dived into the relationships of an Indian family that migrated from India to Africa to Ohio. I learned many aspects of the Indian culture and their move to Africa to seek jobs. I wish that Jennifer Acker had included a glossary of the Indian items, as this reader had trouble in determining the food and other nouns. Sunil seemed extremely lazy and content to let his parents provide his monetary existence, even after he marries. Urmila stands as a force that propels the family onward to a better life. Premchand shows a man disillusioned with his life, but unable to make any changes. Th story portrays the differences in a generation, and the new generation’s loss of culture and heritage. Have we lost too much in our quest for freedom?

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m really not sure what my thoughts are of this book. I enjoyed learning about how Indians from Asia ended up on the African continent. I also liked the story arc however I didn’t quite get my head around the key character Urmila. Sunil the son, his Father and wife all made sense yet his Mother….. I wasn’t sure what to make of her nor the role of her Father.

This story did however resonate with me from a estrangement perspective. It highlighted how each side becomes entrenched and sadly reflected some personal experience.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interesting novel was about an Asian Indian family from Nairobi who have immigrated to the United States. I enjoyed learning about this community. The characters in it have several issues about their marriages, careers, and the clash of cultures that they experience. Nevertheless, it was a bit drawn out and dragged at certain points.

[Achour · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Limits of the World" is a sad novel and hard reading.
The writing style used by the author is direct. Characters are "harsh", anxious and full of doubts and uncertainty which make the reader have no compassion for their misfortune.

Even though it is not the kind of literature I usually read, I was intersted by the topics addressed by this book. Immigration, tolerance and integration in a new society are current and sensitive issues.

Despite that I lived for more than 10 years in East Africa, I learnt more about Indian who came to the region. In this direction, the novel was informative and educational.

My rating is 2.5*

Read: July 2019
Source: NetGalley and the Publisher: Delphinium

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years after Urmila and Premchand married in Nairobi, merging two Indian families that had emigrated to east Africa, the couple made a new home for themselves in Columbus, Ohio. Thirty years on and Urmila's still homesick. Running her Authentic African Giftshop gives her great pleasure, if not wealth or even financial solvency; and funding said retail venture with his medical career doesn't thrill husband Premchand, but with their 30-yr old son Sunil still a student in Boston, distance seems to suit the entire family of three - geographically, emotionally, and metaphorically. Just as Sunil and his Jewish-American girlfriend Amy decide to marry, and only two weeks away from his dissertation deadline, Sunil's mother calls him urgently back home to Nairobi, to the hospital bedside of a brother he never even knew he had.

Jennifer Acker delves into multi-cultural layers of family grudges and secretly harbored hurts, isolation in its many forms, and modern day pressures worldwide. Throughout it all, Kenyan history from the Mau Mau terror to the rise of the KANU party's leader Kenyatta is artfully interwoven with the family's own drama, via the so-called senile grandfather.

I love that the author and her husband Nishi Shah resemble Amy and Sunil, and I love this line: Fareh teh chareh. He who roams advances.

[Emily Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Limits of the World is a book full of complicated, intriguing characters, and I read it quickly because I wanted to see what they would do next. The way the book moves through time, across continents, and between families also kept me reading - we were never in one place for too long, or with one character. I enjoyed all the different voices and sections, and learned a lot (in a fun way!) about the Indian diaspora, about Kenya, and even about life in academia. The way these characters discussed marriage, family, money, and homeland made me think a lot about how I value those things, too. Highly recommend the audiobook, which had great narrators that did a good job differentiating the character's narration. A wonderful read and a book I will read again!

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was bored with the story line and couldn't finish it.

[Burning Thoughts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Limits of the World addressed interesting themes.
1. We can't let our marriage be about power
2. ... livid , changeful emotions of his mother , who had ruled their world and made Sunil feel powerless.
3. Morals, are they shaped by evolution?

Learning the history of Indians who migrated to East Africa in the early 1900s then some migrated to America in the 1960 offers a cultural perspective which I enjoy getting a peep into.

One plot point that annoyed me and made me wonder if it was the result of cultural differences revolved about Urmila (mother and major point of view narrator). She realized she was pregnant while she had ran away from her shaky marriage in America. She gave up her son, leaving him in Africa and returned to America where she and her husband reconciled. Why did she not keep her son, as they quickly had a second son?

There were few metaphors in the novel, making this one particularly striking.

It made sense a bullet in his brain had killed him. A bullet in his heart he could have survived.

On several occasions, the prose threw me. Some jerky transitions and flashbacks. Interleaved chapters of personal memories which I eventually understood were her father-in-law. I never understood why they were timestamped and didn't see the worth of figuring out why.

There was one other plot item that bothered me. Sunil spent years struggling to write his thesis on foundations of morals. When his bride had to move to DC for her job, instead of moving with her he stayed near school, although he had no requirement to be physically at the school. I chalk that up to a cultural or idiosyncratic difference.

Just the type of mind friction a good book offers.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a crowded field of novels about immigrants to the U.S., especially, perhaps, besides Latinx immigrants, those from India, it’s hard to stand out. But this one finds ways to do so. It’s a fairly simple story of familial relationships, but the emotions are complex and there’s a surprising amount of drama without even a hint of melodrama. The main character (unless the main character is his mother, who, after all, gets the first & last chapter but doesn’t feel to me like the heart of the novel) is writing a dissertation in philosophy at Harvard. It is to this author’s great credit that she is able to make his reflections on his dissertation on the source of moral truths not seem stilted and actually relevant to everyday life. And I love the way she portrays the relationship between this man and his new, young wife. And the supportive Harvard professor! And the emotionally stunted father who is nonetheless portrayed as a sympathetic character. Furthermore, the author conveys a keen sense of place, from Columbus, Ohio, to Cambridge, MA, to Nairobi, Kenya. That's right: the extended family of this Indian immigrant all live not in India but in Kenya, which adds a unique flavor. This is the second novel I’ve read in the past 2 years that refers to the Indian immigrants who were brought to Africa to build a railroad from the coast to Victoria. (The other was Dance of the Jakaranda.) I had not known about this before. I recommend novel, which is at once a novel of ideas, a novel of place and identity, and yet also emotionally rich.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listen, this right here is one of my favorite stories and I don't know whether the author knew of this but there is a Chandaria family which is quite well known in Kenya- we've even got Chandaria industries. Now, I love how candid and unapologetic these characters are and while reading this you do not expect to warm up to any character, but rather you find yourself assessing the situation and experiencing life as they are. I like this kind of reading because it takes me away from sentimentality whilst exposing me to reality.
Four generations, secrets, different political times and major decisions made force this family back home to Nairobi to come clean and heal.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.

[Linda Hartley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable story of a Immigrant family from Nairobi into the States. The Chandaria families head of the family a Doctor named Premchand, his wife Urmila and son Sunil.
Their son cannot be what his parents want, a doctor like his father so he changes his curriculum to gain a place at Harvard doing a PhD in Philosophy.
This doesn't meet with his parents expectations neither does him secretly marrying an American Jewish girl completely out of custom to his parents wishes, particularly his mother's.
But they are not completely truthful with Sunil either and keep a big secret about his cousin Bimal and not until there is an accident involving Bimal that the family lie is revealed. Premchand quite likes Sunils wife and finds he is enjoying her confidence and charm. BUT Urmila thinks otherwise planning a different marriage for her son not realising he is not just betrothed but already married. Some family sadness and changes within the unit.Makes for a decent story but similar to other Asian style books written and of those I have previously read. This did want me expecting more.
All in All 3 stars, Good, but not exceptional.

[Marie desJardins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really, really wanted to like this book and really, really did not. The characters all repeatedly treat each other poorly, fail to communicate, and make terrible life choices. I couldn't bring myself to have sympathy for a single one of them. The entire Nairobi sequence felt incoherent and confused. Why were people behaving the way they were behaving, and saying the things they were saying? Who knows. I finished it because I kept thinking that something would finally tie the story together, or bring some of the characters to a more meaningful place of understanding, but that never really happened.

[Polly Krize · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After multiple attempts to read and finish this book, I finally did. Arriving in the United States from Nairobi, the Indian Chandaria family have made a great American life. But there are secrets kept that will affect Sunil, working on his PhD at Harvard. Sunil has secrets of his own. Interesting to read of the vagaries of the human spirit and the choices we make. I found this book difficult and a little boring to get into...only my opinion.

[Yelena · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS is how you write a family drama!

Rare is it that you encounter a novel of the perfect length. This book feels both taut and well-developed, each primary character fleshed out with no unnecessary embellishment. The descriptions are evocative without ever tending purple. The story evolves seamlessly and satisfyingly. There is enough history to add to the narrative, but never so much that it's distracting. This is a book I'm sorry to have finished (because I enjoyed it so and now it's over) and I look forward to whatever the author comes up with next.

[Merrily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The multigenerational story of immigrants from India to East Africa to America is handled in an interesting manner, with the ancient grandfather's memories entered as a tape he is recording for his grandsons. It's more effective and less choppy than the current style of back and forth. Its hard to continue to sympathize with the mother because of her harshness and inflexibility although you feel so sorry for her. I particularly enjoyed the details of Sunil's struggle with his moral philosophy as he writes his Ph.D thesis and its effect on how he should live his life.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well intentioned novel about South Asian Indians in Africa, this family is from Kenya. Sunil the main character grew up in the US of expat parents. The parents never become more than devices to move the plot forward. Sunil is fairly well fleshed out but had his parents been more finely drawn it would have added much more complexity to the story. In reading this I learned something about the South Asian experience in Africa and would have liked more of that. The rest of the work is pretty well trodden in terms of story arc. There are a few plot twists that are hard to believe.

[Clazzzer C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book book a lot and thought it had great promise. It was entertaining and very interesting. The blurb initially jumped out at me and the story pushed me to read on. Secret children, hidden relationships, honesty denied. It would work marvellously as a movie also, one along the lines of The Kite Runner or a Thousand Splendid Suns. Some of the characters jumped out at me and some were quite insipid. With a little more editing and some more depth added to the characters I think it could be a truly great read.

[Kristin]

This a very odd book. I don't even know how to explain it, but all of the characters are just weird and off-kilter somehow, yet seemingly not intentionally, maybe as if the author had trouble knowing or seeing her own characters, or was way out of her personal experience range. It distracted from reading and I didn't get through it. I was reading it with an editor eye and mentally working through writing-level corrections and suggestions, which doesn't really make for a good reading experience. That said, I think it's worth reading based on its unusualness, if someone can get through it.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

When finished, I thought this an “okay” read; not terribly exciting but well-written. There was certainly more information about immigration of Indian people to the US than I was aware of - their home countries history, reasons of British and African distrust, and their fierce pride in their heritage. A book requiring lots of attention to details in each character but none that this reader could say was remarkable or memorable.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for a multi-generational family story, so I enjoyed this one about an Indian/American family. I think it captures a lot about family dynamics, and I learned some interesting things about Indians in Africa, but the weakness for me in this book is that I never really cared about any of the characters on a deeper level. Still worth a read though.