In a world of status messages and selfies, everything is open to scrutiny and censure. In fact, you are expected to be reproachful of all aspects of modern-day living — government inefficiency, fashion faux pas, social bloopers, pronunciation errors. But even in this time of compulsive criticism, the evidence of dysfunction in families — and let’s concede the fact that all families are dysfunctional in their own unique ways — is well-hidden and never discussed. If honesty is a mandatory responsibility of literature, Akhil Sharma’s Family Life has to be considered an important contribution. Very rarely in contemporary literature has a home been placed under such a harsh light that its constituents have turned out to be merely flawed humans — not revered fathers and respected mothers.

Sharma borrows bravely from real life. In the 1970s, a year or so after Sharma and his family emigrate to the US, his brother, a young teen, dives into a swimming pool. His head hits the bottom and he lies unconscious underwater for three minutes. These three minutes change the lives of everyone around him. Birju, as the older brother is called in the book, becomes brain-damaged. He is blind and will never walk or talk. Sharma tells the story through Ajay, the younger boy, who is the helpless witness to how acutely the family unravels after the tragedy.

After two years in a hospital and a nursing home, Ajay’s parents decide to bring Birju home and look after him themselves. His mother throws herself into the role of nurse and eternal champion. The father is overwhelmed, turns inward and hits the bottle. Ajay himself is torn between guilt, sadness and a desire to be from a ‘normal’ family. It is the early ’70s and the massive emigration of middle-class Indians to America is just beginning. Other immigrants see the family as a source of nationalistic pride. Children who misbehave are brought forth to witness for themselves the unconditional love offered by Indian parents. There is also the expected stream of godmen and faith healers. And while Birju lies mute through the circus that goes on around him, Ajay is confounded by the darkness that has gripped his family. He tries to cope as best as he can — he lionises his brother at school, inventing stories about his bravery, strength and intelligence. At home, he watches his mother’s unfailing faith in the prospect that Birju will magically recover one day and his father’s lonely spiral into alcoholism.

When Ajay starts reading, it is about Hemingway. In interviews, Sharma mentions that he threw away 7,000 pages of the book. The prose is sparse, like Hemingway’s, and that makes the honesty that Sharma demonstrates even more brutal. As a book critic, I have many quibbles with the book. The narrative is slow up until the accident. Little Ajay’s conversations with god seem forced and fake. The writing could have been a lot less sparse. Sharma starts the story when he is a 40-year-old but does not complete that cycle and bring us back to that age. But as a reader, all I’ll say is that I finished it in four hours straight, without putting the book down once. As testaments go, that is a far more compelling reflection of the book than any other.

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