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The Best Possible Experience: Stories
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR • An emotionally rich collection of short stories, painting a fascinating portrait of contemporary India and its diaspora and a yearning rendering of the people and places we call home, from a major new literary talent.
“A full-hearted, brilliant debut of necessary beauty.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars and New York Times bestseller Friday Black
"Injam's stories made me want to cast all else aside and return home.” —Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
Vivid, vibrant, and unwaveringly affecting, The Best Possible Experience brings us intimate, impeccably realized accounts of individuals living in one of the most populous countries in the world and in its American diaspora—all haunted, in every sense of the word, by a loss of home.
Classically elegant in prose and consistently modern in outlook, Nishanth Injam’s stories question what it means to have a home and to return home, and show, above all, that home is not a place so much as it is people who are ready to accept you as you are. We see a young man trapped on a bus on the way to visit his parents as his fellow passengers vanish into the restroom. A family, newly in America, determined to host a perfect luncheon for their son’s white classmate—with no idea what to serve him. A woman who returns to a small village in India every summer to visit the grandfather who raised her, a man who lives with the ghosts of his son and his wife. And a man preparing for his green card interview with the American woman he has paid to marry him.
A sui generis talent, Injam first started writing after coming to the United States from India in his twenties. The Best Possible Experience , his profoundly personal debut collection, delivers a universal inquiry into the idea of belonging and preserves in writing the home he left behind, before it was lost
“A full-hearted, brilliant debut of necessary beauty.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars and New York Times bestseller Friday Black
"Injam's stories made me want to cast all else aside and return home.” —Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
Vivid, vibrant, and unwaveringly affecting, The Best Possible Experience brings us intimate, impeccably realized accounts of individuals living in one of the most populous countries in the world and in its American diaspora—all haunted, in every sense of the word, by a loss of home.
Classically elegant in prose and consistently modern in outlook, Nishanth Injam’s stories question what it means to have a home and to return home, and show, above all, that home is not a place so much as it is people who are ready to accept you as you are. We see a young man trapped on a bus on the way to visit his parents as his fellow passengers vanish into the restroom. A family, newly in America, determined to host a perfect luncheon for their son’s white classmate—with no idea what to serve him. A woman who returns to a small village in India every summer to visit the grandfather who raised her, a man who lives with the ghosts of his son and his wife. And a man preparing for his green card interview with the American woman he has paid to marry him.
A sui generis talent, Injam first started writing after coming to the United States from India in his twenties. The Best Possible Experience , his profoundly personal debut collection, delivers a universal inquiry into the idea of belonging and preserves in writing the home he left behind, before it was lost
214 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2023
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July 4, 2023
In a Nutshell: An anthology focussing on India, Indians, and Indianness here and abroad. Beautiful prose and great characterisation, but somewhat abrupt endings due to the slice-of-life approach. Your reaction to the endings will decide if your experience is the best possible one.
This collection of eleven stories is quintessentially Indian, though its settings are spread across India and the USA. Even the stories that are based within India cover a variety of regions. As such, each tale comes with its own unique appeal.
The stories herein are written in the slice-of-life style, which is going to be the make-or-break factor for your experience of this collection. I am not too fond of this style, though if it is written well, I can *like* the story while not loving it. So my experience was unfortunately not “the best possible experience”, but that shouldn’t take away from the book as it was my shortcoming that made my experience relatively lacklustre.
After a long time have I seen such lush prose in an anthology. The writing creates a vivid picture of the scene and captures the pulse of the characters, portraying even difficult feelings such as melancholy and hiraeth without going over the top. The stories have a genuineness to them, and capture the Indian spirit excellently. There’s a sense of pathos underlying each tale, even in the happy moments, though these are quite minimal. At the same time, the book doesn’t become too maudlin. While most of the stories were dramatic in style, the first one was from the speculative fiction genre. Ironically, this is the one I loved best.
To be honest, I don’t prefer reading works by Indian-origin authors who now reside in the USA, because most of them peddle Indian stereotypes to unsuspecting Western readers. Not this book though. The portrayal of India is as authentic as possible, capturing the positives and the negatives of the country in a realistic way. This is the highest compliment I can pay to any book by an Indian diaspora writer.
There are a few Indian words in the stories but no glossary. This wasn’t a problem for me as all the words were familiar to me. But as this book is being readied for a release in the USA, a glossary might help.
There is no foreword by the author explaining his intent behind and theme for this collection, which disappointed me. (I love reading forewords in anthologies to get an idea of the author’s aim for the collection.)
The author’s writing reminded me of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, which is also a similarly-themed anthology having a dual focus on the Indian diaspora in the USA and on contemporary residents of urban and rural India. However, unlike Jhumpa Lahiri’s more traditional plot structure, the endings in Nishanth Injam’s collection were somewhat abrupt due to the slice-of-life approach. Hence, many stories here would have rated higher for me had they offered closure. But most endings left wanting more.
As always, I rated the stories individually. But this time, I can’t really capture my feelings through the ratings because I don’t know how to rate a 4.5 star story with a 2 or 3 star ending. As such, instead of opting for the average of my ratings as usual, I am going with my general sense of satisfaction from the book, which is “I liked it quite a lot”. FWIW, I enjoyed ‘The Bus’, The Immigrant’, ‘Summers of Waiting’, ‘Lunch at Paddy’s’, ‘The Protocol’, and the title story – all of which would have been 4.5 star works had they provided me more satisfying endings.
If you enjoy this writing style and anthologies in general, this is a fabulous collection to try.
3.5 stars, rounding up because the book might work better for slice-of-life lovers, which I am not.
My thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Best Possible Experience”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
This collection of eleven stories is quintessentially Indian, though its settings are spread across India and the USA. Even the stories that are based within India cover a variety of regions. As such, each tale comes with its own unique appeal.
The stories herein are written in the slice-of-life style, which is going to be the make-or-break factor for your experience of this collection. I am not too fond of this style, though if it is written well, I can *like* the story while not loving it. So my experience was unfortunately not “the best possible experience”, but that shouldn’t take away from the book as it was my shortcoming that made my experience relatively lacklustre.
After a long time have I seen such lush prose in an anthology. The writing creates a vivid picture of the scene and captures the pulse of the characters, portraying even difficult feelings such as melancholy and hiraeth without going over the top. The stories have a genuineness to them, and capture the Indian spirit excellently. There’s a sense of pathos underlying each tale, even in the happy moments, though these are quite minimal. At the same time, the book doesn’t become too maudlin. While most of the stories were dramatic in style, the first one was from the speculative fiction genre. Ironically, this is the one I loved best.
To be honest, I don’t prefer reading works by Indian-origin authors who now reside in the USA, because most of them peddle Indian stereotypes to unsuspecting Western readers. Not this book though. The portrayal of India is as authentic as possible, capturing the positives and the negatives of the country in a realistic way. This is the highest compliment I can pay to any book by an Indian diaspora writer.
There are a few Indian words in the stories but no glossary. This wasn’t a problem for me as all the words were familiar to me. But as this book is being readied for a release in the USA, a glossary might help.
There is no foreword by the author explaining his intent behind and theme for this collection, which disappointed me. (I love reading forewords in anthologies to get an idea of the author’s aim for the collection.)
The author’s writing reminded me of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, which is also a similarly-themed anthology having a dual focus on the Indian diaspora in the USA and on contemporary residents of urban and rural India. However, unlike Jhumpa Lahiri’s more traditional plot structure, the endings in Nishanth Injam’s collection were somewhat abrupt due to the slice-of-life approach. Hence, many stories here would have rated higher for me had they offered closure. But most endings left wanting more.
As always, I rated the stories individually. But this time, I can’t really capture my feelings through the ratings because I don’t know how to rate a 4.5 star story with a 2 or 3 star ending. As such, instead of opting for the average of my ratings as usual, I am going with my general sense of satisfaction from the book, which is “I liked it quite a lot”. FWIW, I enjoyed ‘The Bus’, The Immigrant’, ‘Summers of Waiting’, ‘Lunch at Paddy’s’, ‘The Protocol’, and the title story – all of which would have been 4.5 star works had they provided me more satisfying endings.
If you enjoy this writing style and anthologies in general, this is a fabulous collection to try.
3.5 stars, rounding up because the book might work better for slice-of-life lovers, which I am not.
My thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Best Possible Experience”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
October 6, 2023
In the title story of Nishanth Injam’s debut collection, The Best Possible Experience: Stories, a widowed father in Goa teaches his son the art of giving people the ‘best possible experience’, as he terms it. From the time little Alex is a boy in school, his father, Mr Lourenco, takes Alex on rides in the tourist bus he drives: rides that show Alex what might be. Mr Lourenco’s stories, of Goa’s Portuguese heritage and of the Lourenco family’s own Portuguese heritage, are vibrant and interesting, and Mr Lourenco’s dreams for Alex are just as grand. Slowly, however, as the years go by, Alex begins to see the shabbiness beneath the glittering façade—and things unravel, the adventure stales. But what remains is love: Alex’s love for the father who taught him to dream big.
Love, in fact, is one of the main themes of this collection of short stories. Some of it—in stories like Sunday Evening with Ice Cream, The Sea, and The Protocol—is about romantic love, but mostly, these are stories about love in its other forms: a love for home, a love for family, for memories, for people and things one has known. There is love, for instance, in The Immigrant, as Aditya flounders about, starving and trying desperately to keep afloat in a foreign country, in a taxing study schedule simply because he must provide for the poor, ailing parents back home, whom he loves so much. A love that is echoed in Summers of Waiting, a touching tale of a grandfather and his orphaned grand-daughter, whose relationship has seen many ups and downs—but has endured. There is the romantic love, perhaps unstated, of Chaya, in Sunday Evening with Ice Cream, who has sacrificed it for familial love, for the brother who needs her. In almost every one of the other stories, some aspect or the other of love comes through, whether it is the ephemeral, uncertain, undefined emotion Gautham feels for Ashley in The Protocol, or the sibling love, tinged with guilt, that is so poignant in The Bus.
Intertwined with the idea of love is that of family. Family forms an important part of nearly all the stories in this set, and the sense of belonging that ‘family’ evokes is a theme that plays out again and again in these stories. Injam, however, manages to write with a subtlety and a depth of feeling that renders his stories devoid of melodrama, even when there is—as in the case of Rafi, mourning his dead wife in The Sea—drama. The families of these stories make sacrifices for each other, love each other: and yet, like families in real life, quarrel bitterly, take advantage of love, hold grudges.
Injam’s stories are marked by an attention to detail, impeccable language, and excellent characterization. A good bit of what makes these stories so relatable is the way he is able to bring his characters to life: these are people we might know, people we might be. Their thoughts, their fears, their challenges and dilemmas, are all what we, too, might know. To add to the sense of “these may be us”, there’s the language: fluid, mellifluous, very real, never succumbing to the temptation of being clever just for the sake of it. Injam’s language, especially his grasp over dialogue, is superb, and works to reinforce the ‘reality’ of his stories.
The eleven short stories that comprise The Best Possible Experience: Stories represent a fine debut work. There is wit in several of these stories, but—as in real life—that wit is balanced with poignancy, with the very real fact that life must go on. A reader is reminded, in a subtle way, that life is not always a bed of roses: but to be able to laugh at it, and at ourselves, may be the wisest way to deal with the many challenges, the disappointments, and adversities we must face.
(From my review for Open: The Magazine: https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/bo...)
Love, in fact, is one of the main themes of this collection of short stories. Some of it—in stories like Sunday Evening with Ice Cream, The Sea, and The Protocol—is about romantic love, but mostly, these are stories about love in its other forms: a love for home, a love for family, for memories, for people and things one has known. There is love, for instance, in The Immigrant, as Aditya flounders about, starving and trying desperately to keep afloat in a foreign country, in a taxing study schedule simply because he must provide for the poor, ailing parents back home, whom he loves so much. A love that is echoed in Summers of Waiting, a touching tale of a grandfather and his orphaned grand-daughter, whose relationship has seen many ups and downs—but has endured. There is the romantic love, perhaps unstated, of Chaya, in Sunday Evening with Ice Cream, who has sacrificed it for familial love, for the brother who needs her. In almost every one of the other stories, some aspect or the other of love comes through, whether it is the ephemeral, uncertain, undefined emotion Gautham feels for Ashley in The Protocol, or the sibling love, tinged with guilt, that is so poignant in The Bus.
Intertwined with the idea of love is that of family. Family forms an important part of nearly all the stories in this set, and the sense of belonging that ‘family’ evokes is a theme that plays out again and again in these stories. Injam, however, manages to write with a subtlety and a depth of feeling that renders his stories devoid of melodrama, even when there is—as in the case of Rafi, mourning his dead wife in The Sea—drama. The families of these stories make sacrifices for each other, love each other: and yet, like families in real life, quarrel bitterly, take advantage of love, hold grudges.
Injam’s stories are marked by an attention to detail, impeccable language, and excellent characterization. A good bit of what makes these stories so relatable is the way he is able to bring his characters to life: these are people we might know, people we might be. Their thoughts, their fears, their challenges and dilemmas, are all what we, too, might know. To add to the sense of “these may be us”, there’s the language: fluid, mellifluous, very real, never succumbing to the temptation of being clever just for the sake of it. Injam’s language, especially his grasp over dialogue, is superb, and works to reinforce the ‘reality’ of his stories.
The eleven short stories that comprise The Best Possible Experience: Stories represent a fine debut work. There is wit in several of these stories, but—as in real life—that wit is balanced with poignancy, with the very real fact that life must go on. A reader is reminded, in a subtle way, that life is not always a bed of roses: but to be able to laugh at it, and at ourselves, may be the wisest way to deal with the many challenges, the disappointments, and adversities we must face.
(From my review for Open: The Magazine: https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/bo...)
April 28, 2023
This is how immigrant and diaspora stories should be done. Rich with imagery and unmistakable humanism, each story is unique and reminds you of simpler times and complex relationships.
November 12, 2023
Stop reading this, and read this book instead
February 26, 2024
This was the first good book I have read this year, sadly. Been some doozies. Shout out to Meggan for dropping it off because she knew my reading slump was in a real bad way - the short stories were perfect for my struggling attention span, and each packed such an emotional wallop. There was MAYBE one (the bus one) that I didn’t fully commit to, but not worth knocking off a star. I promise you will feel enormous empathy for one character in each story. Really nice collection.
September 28, 2023
I took over a month to read this collection. Slowly and steadily I kept falling in love with the stories in here. This is a brilliant debut, the writing takes some of the most oft written themes to the next level. We have a writer here who experiments with the short form of story telling and gives us various styles in this very collection and shows his mastery and hold over the form! I loved it, so much so that at this hour as I finished the titular story, also the last in the collection I actually am typing my emotions here on GR where I almost always just leave it at rating the books! If you are a lover of short stories like I am and you want to read some good writing, please pick this book up. This isn’t a review but just my instant reading reactions. Review to come soon.
September 24, 2023
This is a nice collection of short stories of the Indian diaspora. Some stories made me feel at home, and some stories made me feel so far away, alienated from experiences. But I suppose that is what the Indian diaspora is - vast, unique, and unusual, but binded by a shared experience of bittersweet hope, exhaustion, and longing. I find the writing style simple, but this allows you to really engage in the more magical elements of the writing.
April 2, 2023
Heart breaking and heartfelt. Dynamic and deeply complex.
July 21, 2023
Wise and elegiac. Really resonant stories that get right to the emotional core of things.
November 5, 2023
I’m not normally a huge short story fan but I absolutely adored this collection.
April 3, 2024
I've been on a good run of short story collections lately, and The Best Possible Experience did nothing to alter that.
Nishanth Injam exhibits a deft touch in the way he writes so naturally in so many different voices and vividly conjures a multitude of experiences faced by his Indian characters on both the subcontinent and abroad.
My favorite selections were those showcasing opposing forces, usually either due to cultural or generational differences, sometimes even surprising me with the resolution, or lack of one.
Most stories did not provide a tidy ending, which was fine with me. It often felt like the reader was dropped into an episode and then removed after a short while, leaving a whole untold story containing plenty of plot action before the writing began and continuing on long after the writing on the page ended.
P/F Longlist #8
Nishanth Injam exhibits a deft touch in the way he writes so naturally in so many different voices and vividly conjures a multitude of experiences faced by his Indian characters on both the subcontinent and abroad.
My favorite selections were those showcasing opposing forces, usually either due to cultural or generational differences, sometimes even surprising me with the resolution, or lack of one.
Most stories did not provide a tidy ending, which was fine with me. It often felt like the reader was dropped into an episode and then removed after a short while, leaving a whole untold story containing plenty of plot action before the writing began and continuing on long after the writing on the page ended.
P/F Longlist #8
March 27, 2024
Truly remarkable. I felt the weight of each and every story. Injam is an excellent writer, I’m so impressed by the amount of emotion and character development conveyed in short story format. I read this in one day, I couldn’t put it down, which is so impressive for a book in which each chapter has a complete plot. Beautiful.
2023
June 10, 2024📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon
August 7, 2024
A collection of slice-of-life short stories, some I absolutely loved, others not so much. The writing was simple yet effective and the one thing that really stuck with me was the writer's penchant to evoke strong emotions and to keep the readers thinking about the characters long after finishing their stories!
January 1, 2024
There is some distance between the moments of arrival and departure… It is this distance that we may call life. The in-between.
But there’s also some difference in terms of how we experience these moments. The anticipatory thrill of arrival and the numbing sense of loss at departure—both our own and the of the ones we love. But there are moments in this life, where these distinct feelings collide and collapse. As most (good) literature testifies, it is in this moment of collision that we experience truth. Truth—for a rather cynical estimation—being a measure of time, and time being a measure of loss.
It’s possibly the hardest thing to write short stories, not only in terms of how you differentiate their themes and plots and settings, but also, how you manage to traverse these differences by (paradoxically) intelligently inserting parallels between them. Because indeed, stories, no matter what their shapes and sizes and colours, are ultimately about five-six things at most. Loss, love, time, memory, home, and maybe a couple of other things. Nishanth Injam’s short stories are gorgeous arrangements of all these themes, told in such brilliant prose, which is at once devastating and life-giving. He writes as a witness, almost as if just observing these vignettes of life playing out. And I think that’s the charm of this book: It pours and without any drama. But it soaks you to the bone, nonetheless.
These are stories about the search for home and the persistent discomfort of not knowing what that word means. It’s about place, physical and otherwise. The place that we call home and the place that we acquire… and the distances between these two. Also the place that we are; the body a graveyard of haunting memories and things-that-no-longer-are.
This is a phenomenal collection, which will eventually find its place in a very rich canon. This is a book that embodies the subtle charm of the short story, and there’s no way you can miss it. Especially if you are as obsessed as I am with the ideas and poetics of space: home and the world around us.
But there’s also some difference in terms of how we experience these moments. The anticipatory thrill of arrival and the numbing sense of loss at departure—both our own and the of the ones we love. But there are moments in this life, where these distinct feelings collide and collapse. As most (good) literature testifies, it is in this moment of collision that we experience truth. Truth—for a rather cynical estimation—being a measure of time, and time being a measure of loss.
It’s possibly the hardest thing to write short stories, not only in terms of how you differentiate their themes and plots and settings, but also, how you manage to traverse these differences by (paradoxically) intelligently inserting parallels between them. Because indeed, stories, no matter what their shapes and sizes and colours, are ultimately about five-six things at most. Loss, love, time, memory, home, and maybe a couple of other things. Nishanth Injam’s short stories are gorgeous arrangements of all these themes, told in such brilliant prose, which is at once devastating and life-giving. He writes as a witness, almost as if just observing these vignettes of life playing out. And I think that’s the charm of this book: It pours and without any drama. But it soaks you to the bone, nonetheless.
These are stories about the search for home and the persistent discomfort of not knowing what that word means. It’s about place, physical and otherwise. The place that we call home and the place that we acquire… and the distances between these two. Also the place that we are; the body a graveyard of haunting memories and things-that-no-longer-are.
This is a phenomenal collection, which will eventually find its place in a very rich canon. This is a book that embodies the subtle charm of the short story, and there’s no way you can miss it. Especially if you are as obsessed as I am with the ideas and poetics of space: home and the world around us.
September 10, 2023
The Best Possible Experience is a debut short story collection by Nishanth Injam.It is a compilation of 11 short stories centered around India and States (USA).
Review
The stories explore the themes of home, love, loss, belonging, and identity. Each tale has a well-crafted composition, and the plot is up to the mark. The readers will enjoy the book, and it will be challenging to identify which story they love the most.
The characters in the stories belong to different walks of life, like a child who murdered his brother and a person like Mr. Lourenco who tries to fake his ancestry. As a reader, you will enjoy different personalities. The tales in this book will make you laugh, cry, smile, and have a heavy heart.
The writing style of the author is simple yet thought-provoking. Every story has a mix of emotions, but each ends with a glimpse of sadness and pain. The author ensures the readers engage in the story till the end and find the twist it takes.
The reader may feel sad after each story ends. In the beginning, everything appears acceptable, but the end is drastic.
For example, the story Lunch at Paddy's is an Indian family drama that moved to the States. The family is preparing to host a dinner for the white kid, not knowing what to offer him without disguising him. The story ends in a tragic tone where the kids and her mother stand on the street waiting for him in a foreign land, and the father watches them from afar.
Similarly, the readers will discover the thought-provoking stories in this book. The readers will be able to guess the plot of a few tales. But the thing that will keep them engaged in the book is the way the author crafted the stories.
It is a must-read for anyone who enjoys short stories or suffers from the pain of loss and lack of belonging would find them relatable.
Review
The stories explore the themes of home, love, loss, belonging, and identity. Each tale has a well-crafted composition, and the plot is up to the mark. The readers will enjoy the book, and it will be challenging to identify which story they love the most.
The characters in the stories belong to different walks of life, like a child who murdered his brother and a person like Mr. Lourenco who tries to fake his ancestry. As a reader, you will enjoy different personalities. The tales in this book will make you laugh, cry, smile, and have a heavy heart.
The writing style of the author is simple yet thought-provoking. Every story has a mix of emotions, but each ends with a glimpse of sadness and pain. The author ensures the readers engage in the story till the end and find the twist it takes.
The reader may feel sad after each story ends. In the beginning, everything appears acceptable, but the end is drastic.
For example, the story Lunch at Paddy's is an Indian family drama that moved to the States. The family is preparing to host a dinner for the white kid, not knowing what to offer him without disguising him. The story ends in a tragic tone where the kids and her mother stand on the street waiting for him in a foreign land, and the father watches them from afar.
Similarly, the readers will discover the thought-provoking stories in this book. The readers will be able to guess the plot of a few tales. But the thing that will keep them engaged in the book is the way the author crafted the stories.
It is a must-read for anyone who enjoys short stories or suffers from the pain of loss and lack of belonging would find them relatable.
August 4, 2023
In 2023 Pantheon published Nishanth Injam’s book “The Best Possible Experience: Stories.” Injam migrated to the United States from Telangana, India when he was in his 20’s. After he arrived, he received an MFA from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program and he received the Chamberlain Award along with the Frederick Busch Prize in Fiction. Each of the 11 chapters in his debut book are short stories that feature cultural values and events that are anchored in India’s spiritual, social, and economic value sets. These storylines reflect “an epic mosaic of life.” The stories are full of surprises about the grief, challenges, sufferings, and mysticism of Asian diaspora in America. The stories are oftentimes sad, occasionally spiced with humor, and always full of thought provoking character experiences. (L)
August 7, 2023
Stories from the heart
Loved this book because it made me think about the “otherness” of the immigrant experience. Throughout, there is a wistfulness for home, for belonging somewhere. Some of it made me laugh—the surprise at toilet paper vs a bidet and the question of cleanliness. (And we Americans think we are so advanced.)
Beautifully written book that I highly recommend.
Loved this book because it made me think about the “otherness” of the immigrant experience. Throughout, there is a wistfulness for home, for belonging somewhere. Some of it made me laugh—the surprise at toilet paper vs a bidet and the question of cleanliness. (And we Americans think we are so advanced.)
Beautifully written book that I highly recommend.
August 30, 2023
I’ve been waiting for a collection of short stories based on the Indian diaspora like this for a very long time. And I’m enamored with Nishanth’s characters and narrative arc. I loved each and every story in this collection. A very special book.
September 12, 2023
If you only read one book of short stories this year make it this book.
August 12, 2025
It can often be difficult to find an anthology of stories that resonates with readers from a variety of backgrounds. Injam’s The Best Possible Experience has excelled at the task of blending a variety of identities into a cohesive collection that encourages contemplation into the readers’ own experiences with status, love, and community.
Growing up a child of immigrants, I often had a sense of longing. Injam uses a variety of locations - such as the lush landscapes of Andhra Pradesh to a bus driving through tourist attractions in Goa to a McDonald’s in Boston - to tell the stories of individuals and families with the same feeling. He is gifted at regaling the struggles of day to day experiences. Green card marriages end up feeling personal. Caring for a sick grandparent hits very close to home. And inviting a friend from school to your immigrant household is a once in a lifetime event. Setting up a home - whether physical or aspirational - is the central theme in Injam’s stories.
“Come with Me”, a particular favorite, illustrates a tale of forbidden love during a hot summer in Karimnagar and tackles the importance of acceptance. “The Zamindar’s Watch”, another short story with punch, captures childhood innocence perfectly and with poise. There is no doubt that Injam has used his own upbringing in India and challenges of immigrating to the United States to create storytelling that is both simple and strong in its execution. He doesn’t need to use fluff or exaggeration - these are glimpses into people’s day to day lives and Injam has done us the honor of being its presenter.
Growing up a child of immigrants, I often had a sense of longing. Injam uses a variety of locations - such as the lush landscapes of Andhra Pradesh to a bus driving through tourist attractions in Goa to a McDonald’s in Boston - to tell the stories of individuals and families with the same feeling. He is gifted at regaling the struggles of day to day experiences. Green card marriages end up feeling personal. Caring for a sick grandparent hits very close to home. And inviting a friend from school to your immigrant household is a once in a lifetime event. Setting up a home - whether physical or aspirational - is the central theme in Injam’s stories.
“Come with Me”, a particular favorite, illustrates a tale of forbidden love during a hot summer in Karimnagar and tackles the importance of acceptance. “The Zamindar’s Watch”, another short story with punch, captures childhood innocence perfectly and with poise. There is no doubt that Injam has used his own upbringing in India and challenges of immigrating to the United States to create storytelling that is both simple and strong in its execution. He doesn’t need to use fluff or exaggeration - these are glimpses into people’s day to day lives and Injam has done us the honor of being its presenter.
January 22, 2024
It’s extremely difficult to critically review a collection of any kind, be it poetry or a short story. One cannot love every single piece because, even though they all might be thematically similar, the voices and characters within them vary. And hence, it creates a duality within the reader—having once finished a collection—to postulate whether it was the entirety of the book they wanted to love and praise or a certain section within it.
In The Best Possible Experience, except for the two stories called The Bus and The Sea, I loved all nine of them. Having read The Secret Lives Of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw last year, I had convinced myself that there was a collection as strong as this. But, to my surprise, Nishanth Injam proved me wrong.
Revolving around the themes of immigration, home, and belonging, Injam presents us with such a vibrant range of characters, each intent on making you emotional. From a young boy’s infatuation with another to a daughter returning home to find her grandfather nearing his end, these stories and the people inhabiting them ring a bell of recognition. He is telling us our own stories. I would be lying if I said I didn’t tear up in almost every story. I was literally hollering by the end of The Immigrant, which was about an Indian student’s first few weeks of struggle in the United States. It’s a shame that none of you are reading this collection.
In The Best Possible Experience, except for the two stories called The Bus and The Sea, I loved all nine of them. Having read The Secret Lives Of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw last year, I had convinced myself that there was a collection as strong as this. But, to my surprise, Nishanth Injam proved me wrong.
Revolving around the themes of immigration, home, and belonging, Injam presents us with such a vibrant range of characters, each intent on making you emotional. From a young boy’s infatuation with another to a daughter returning home to find her grandfather nearing his end, these stories and the people inhabiting them ring a bell of recognition. He is telling us our own stories. I would be lying if I said I didn’t tear up in almost every story. I was literally hollering by the end of The Immigrant, which was about an Indian student’s first few weeks of struggle in the United States. It’s a shame that none of you are reading this collection.
April 4, 2024
People change and they are not who they were, nobody is, life has changed for all of us, and home has too.
Home, do you miss it? A simple question, but the longer he thought about it the more impossible it seemed to answer.
Why did you give up on me?
Why did you distance yourself from me?
Can you imagine being in her place, loving someone secretly all your life?
The distance between the place I live and the place that lives in me is more than eight thousand miles.
The city that was once mine is no longer what it was. Every street is altered. If my parents do not come to the airport, if they are no alive, I will not know where I am. I might be in the same city, but I will no longer be home. I don't know what Ill do if I cant see my experiences reflected in the eyes of someone I love.
Home, do you miss it? A simple question, but the longer he thought about it the more impossible it seemed to answer.
Why did you give up on me?
Why did you distance yourself from me?
Can you imagine being in her place, loving someone secretly all your life?
The distance between the place I live and the place that lives in me is more than eight thousand miles.
The city that was once mine is no longer what it was. Every street is altered. If my parents do not come to the airport, if they are no alive, I will not know where I am. I might be in the same city, but I will no longer be home. I don't know what Ill do if I cant see my experiences reflected in the eyes of someone I love.
August 5, 2023
Here’s a collection of short stories, all of which leave you wanting for more or trying to guess what would happen next as it ends.
These stories are all reminiscent of Indian immigrants, Indian experiences both in the motherland and outside - but they don’t really read like the typical, expected stories that I am used to.
The author has managed to take each story and really flesh out characters, the narrative, and possibilities without losing the sense of reality in them.
It’s interesting to also note that each story highlights some sense of loss, lack, poverty - in different ways. Perhaps this stood out the most to me because I’m currently in a place where I am tuning in to universal abundance ✨
Thoughtful read, all of the stories in this collection.
August 9, 2023
Many interesting stories here, all with themes of displacement, loss, identity, and bitterness. Some are searingly painful; others are touched with humor. One protagonist takes a surreal bus ride that pulls him back into the darkest moment of his life. Another experiences the trauma of being an isolated immigrant with no resources, struggling to be successful enough to save his family back in India. Others are seeking to find ways to connect with the white people they don’t understand. It’s a disquieting collection that renders the awkwardness of living in painful situations that they can’t quite comprehend or manage. A few stories drag and some are relentlessly bleak. But Injam is a talented and sensitive writer and I look forward to seeing future work from him.
October 23, 2023
Each of the eleven short stories was a delightful, unique experience--about India or people from India. However, they could be people from anywhere. Most of the stories involved transit or water. The style is clear and engrossing and often quite dark. The initial inscription is from Italo Calvino, and the stories remind me of his style--a high compliment. One story concerned an arranged marriage in America to get a green card from a man from India and a Black woman, who needed the money from the arrangement--they had to figure out how to get through the interrogation. It was comical but sad. Another story was about passengers disappearing from a tourist bus--a tale especially compelling for Halloween. Just a worthwhile good read.
October 29, 2023
A beautiful, wrenching collection of stories, all about Indians either in India or as immigrants in the US. Nobody is having a good time, and none of the stories are happy or funny, so be prepared to not have the best possible experience!
With that said, Injam works magic with the challenging format of the short story. Many of them end leaving you wondering what happens next. Did Vikas' white friend ever show up for lunch? Did Aditya manage to scrounge up some money? (This story reminded me of the novel The Chinese Groove). Did Gautham end up being deported? (I kept hoping for a Green Card (Depardieu/McDowell) type outcome, alas it was not to be, not Injam's style)
We'll never know, but these characters will remain with us.
With that said, Injam works magic with the challenging format of the short story. Many of them end leaving you wondering what happens next. Did Vikas' white friend ever show up for lunch? Did Aditya manage to scrounge up some money? (This story reminded me of the novel The Chinese Groove). Did Gautham end up being deported? (I kept hoping for a Green Card (Depardieu/McDowell) type outcome, alas it was not to be, not Injam's style)
We'll never know, but these characters will remain with us.
May 9, 2024
I’m just a basic white girl born & raised in the US, Michigan specifically, and I found this book both heartbreaking & heartwarming. Interestingly, quite a few of my first coworkers in the lab at a pharmaceutical company were from India and there’s a huge population of families from India in my current neighborhood in north Texas, so these short stories really hit home and made me think. As with all collections, I liked some stories more than others- the one of the student in Philadelphia truly broke my heart. I love the focus on family and perseverance. I think a lot of American could benefit from reading more stories like these.
August 17, 2023
Quick, thought provoking reads. Most are about the relationships with children and their parents or grandparents. Some reflect the struggle between living in the US versus being homesick for India. Many are about people in what are considered the "lower castes" and give you insight into life from that perspective. I was a bit hesitant after teh first story because it seemed odd, but it gets you thinking outside of the box and placing yourself in the character's shoes. Many of the stories are heavy and sad, counter to the title.
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