{"id":30382,"date":"2024-08-19T15:28:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30382"},"modified":"2024-08-19T15:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:28:52","slug":"akhil-sharma-the-narayans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/08\/19\/akhil-sharma-the-narayans\/","title":{"rendered":"Akhil Sharma: “The Narayans”"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

“The Narayans”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Akhil Sharma<\/span>
\nfrom the August 26, 2o24 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"\"F<\/span>or a few years in the mid 2010s, around the publication of his second novel, Family Life<\/em>, we got several stories from Akhil Sharma, so it’s nice to see another bit of short fiction from him after quite a few years without.<\/p>\n

Here’s how “The Narayans” begins:<\/p>\n

\n

Mrs. Narayan was small, dark-skinned, oval-faced. She had a wonderful singsong voice. She\u2019d come up to you at temple on Holi or Diwali and offer congratulations so heartfelt you\u2019d feel as if it were the first time the day had ever been celebrated. We all liked her. She was an immigrant, too, but she didn\u2019t seem to have jangled nerves the way we did. She cooked for many of us and regularly tried to refuse payment. \u201cThis is from my side,\u201d she\u2019d say. \u201cA horse can\u2019t be friends with grass,\u201d we might answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I hope you’re all starting a good week, and I look forward to reading the story and any thoughts you may care to share!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker fiction is Akhil Sharma’s “The Narayans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[424,94],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-akhil-sharma","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Narayans.jpeg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7U2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30385,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30382\/revisions\/30385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30382"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}