After being extremely impressed by Jhumpa Lahiri's first book of short stories "Interpreter of Maladies" (so much so that it was my book gift of the year to at least 3 people) I eagerly awaited her novel "The Namesake".
The Namesake details the life of the Ganguly family from their life in India, to a life as immigrants in the US. It also deals with how their son growing up as an American views his life both as an Indian and as an American, and how he comes to terms with these dual aspects.
The Namesake has been praised for it's own style and lyricism; however I cannot help but compare it with Lahiri's previous writings. Sometimes the book seems too long winded and the details are extreme, at other times parts of the story are glossed over quickly. The father (Ashoke) was a character much closer to my heart than the main character Gogol who spent most of the book being confused. Maybe it's just my intolerance of the "seeking one's identity" type of character, but the first half of the book was much more interesting than the second half.
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