The Namesame
The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri
A MARINER BOOK Houghton Mifflin Company Boston • New York
Copyright ©2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lahiri, Jhumpa. The namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri. p. cm. ISBN 0-618-48522-8 (pbk.) ISBN 0-395-92721-8 1. Young men—Fiction. 2. Massachusetts—Fiction. 3. East Indian Americans—Fiction. 4. Children of immigrants —Fiction. 5. Assimilation (Sociology)—Fiction. 6. Alienation (Social psychology) —Fiction. 7. Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich, 1809-1852—Appreciation— Fiction. 1. Title. ps3562.a3i6n36 2003 813'.54—dc2i 2003041718 Printed in the United States of America Book design by Melissa Lotfy
DOC 40 39 38 37 36 35 A portion of this book appeared in slightly different form in The New Yorker.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for its generous support. My deepest thanks also go to Susan Choi, Carin Clevidence, Gita Daneshjoo, Samantha Gillison, Daphne Kalotay, Cressida Leyshon, Heidi Pitlor, Janet Silver, Eric Simonoff, and Jayne Yaffe Kemp. I am indebted to the following books: Nikolai Gogol, by Vladimir Nabokov, and Divided Soul: The Life of Gogol, by Henri Troyat. Quotations from "The Overcoat" are from David Magarshack's translation.
For Alberto and Octavio, whom I call by other names
The reader should realize himself that it could not have happened otherwise, and that to give him any other name was quite out of the question. — NIKOLAI GOGOL, "The Overcoat"
1
1968 On a sticky august evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green
A MARINER BOOK Houghton Mifflin Company Boston • New York
Copyright ©2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lahiri, Jhumpa. The namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri. p. cm. ISBN 0-618-48522-8 (pbk.) ISBN 0-395-92721-8 1. Young men—Fiction. 2. Massachusetts—Fiction. 3. East Indian Americans—Fiction. 4. Children of immigrants —Fiction. 5. Assimilation (Sociology)—Fiction. 6. Alienation (Social psychology) —Fiction. 7. Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich, 1809-1852—Appreciation— Fiction. 1. Title. ps3562.a3i6n36 2003 813'.54—dc2i 2003041718 Printed in the United States of America Book design by Melissa Lotfy
DOC 40 39 38 37 36 35 A portion of this book appeared in slightly different form in The New Yorker.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for its generous support. My deepest thanks also go to Susan Choi, Carin Clevidence, Gita Daneshjoo, Samantha Gillison, Daphne Kalotay, Cressida Leyshon, Heidi Pitlor, Janet Silver, Eric Simonoff, and Jayne Yaffe Kemp. I am indebted to the following books: Nikolai Gogol, by Vladimir Nabokov, and Divided Soul: The Life of Gogol, by Henri Troyat. Quotations from "The Overcoat" are from David Magarshack's translation.
For Alberto and Octavio, whom I call by other names
The reader should realize himself that it could not have happened otherwise, and that to give him any other name was quite out of the question. — NIKOLAI GOGOL, "The Overcoat"
1
1968 On a sticky august evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green