The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel, by Mira Jacob
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The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel, by Mira Jacob
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, BUSTLE, AND EMILY GOULD, THE MILLIONSFor fans of J. Courtney Sullivan, Meg Wolitzer, Mona Simpson, and Jhumpa Lahiri comes a winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past. With depth, heart, and agility, debut novelist Mira Jacob takes us on a deftly plotted journey that ranges from 1970s India to suburban 1980s New Mexico to Seattle during the dot.com boom. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is an epic, irreverent testimony to the bonds of love, the pull of hope, and the power of making peace with life’s uncertainties. Celebrated brain surgeon Thomas Eapen has been sitting on his porch, talking to dead relatives. At least that is the story his wife, Kamala, prone to exaggeration, tells their daughter, Amina, a photographer living in Seattle. Reluctantly Amina returns home and finds a situation that is far more complicated than her mother let on, with roots in a trip the family, including Amina’s rebellious brother Akhil, took to India twenty years earlier. Confronted by Thomas’s unwillingness to explain himself, strange looks from the hospital staff, and a series of puzzling items buried in her mother’s garden, Amina soon realizes that the only way she can help her father is by coming to terms with her family’s painful past. In doing so, she must reckon with the ghosts that haunt all of the Eapens. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. “With wit and a rich understanding of human foibles, Jacob unspools a story that will touch your heart.”—People “Optimistic, unpretentious and refreshingly witty.”—Associated Press “By turns hilarious and tender and always attuned to shifts of emotion . . . [Jacob’s] characters shimmer with life.”—Entertainment Weekly “A rich, engrossing debut told with lightness and care.”—The Kansas City Star “[A] sprawling, poignant, often humorous novel . . . Told with humor and sympathy for its characters, the book serves as a bittersweet lesson in the binding power of family, even when we seek to break out from it.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow. . . . When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things.”—The Boston Globe “This is an effortlessly gorgeous and rich book. Its prose is lovely and precise, alternately luminous and direct; its observations of people and families and the physical world are poignant and a delight. The dialogue is sharp, funny, and true. This is a triumphant debut!”—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! “Comparisons of Jacob to Jhumpa Lahiri are inevitable; . . . both write with naked honesty about the uneasy generational divide among Indians in America and about family in all its permutations.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel, by Mira Jacob- Amazon Sales Rank: #96950 in Books
- Brand: Jacob, Mira
- Published on: 2015-06-09
- Released on: 2015-06-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.10" w x 5.20" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 528 pages
From Booklist This atmospheric behemoth of a book, Jacob’s ambitious first novel, follows the fortunes of the Eapens, an Indian American family dealing with tragedy and loss. Told from the perspective of daughter Amina, a 30-year-old professional photographer, the book moves backward and forward in time from 1979, which finds the Eapens on a visit to India; to 1983, when tragedy first strikes the family, now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico; to 1998, when that same tragedy, which involved Amina’s firebrand older brother, Akhil, revisits the family as Amina’s father, Thomas, faces a possibly terminal illness. Jacob has written a closely observed, scrupulously detailed story of an extended family dealing with the difficulties of living in America and with each other. That the past is always present in their lives provides a dramatic tension that at once brings them together and threatens to drive them apart. Jacob has done an excellent job of balancing these elements as she has created a memorable and dramatic portrait of a family in flux. --Michael Cart
Review “With wit and a rich understanding of human foibles, [Mira] Jacob unspools a story that will touch your heart.”—People “Jacob’s novel is light and optimistic, unpretentious and refreshingly witty. Jacob has created characters with evident care and treats them with gentleness even as they fight viciously with each other. Her prose is sharp and true and deeply funny. . . . This is the literary fiction I will be recommending to everyone this summer, especially those who love multigenerational, multicultural family sagas.”—Associated Press “This debut novel so fully envelops the reader in the soul of an Indian-American immigrant family that it's heart-wrenching to part with them. . . . Thanks to Jacob’s captivating voice, which is by turns hilarious and tender and always attuned to shifts of emotion, her characters shimmer with life. [Grade:] A-”—Entertainment Weekly“The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is a rich, engrossing debut told with lightness and care, as smart about grief as it is about the humor required to transcend it.”—The Kansas City Star “[A] sprawling, poignant, often humorous novel that’s worth missing cocktails on the deck in order to finish a chapter . . . Told with humor and sympathy for its characters, the book serves as a bittersweet lesson in the binding power of family, even when we seek to break out from it.”—O: The Oprah Magazine“Beautifully wrought, frequently funny, gently heartbreaking . . . Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow, and she is remarkably adept at tonal shifts. When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things.”—The Boston Globe“Always engrossing and often feels so true to life that it’s a surprise that it’s not.”—The Austin Chronicle “Comparisons of Jacob to Jhumpa Lahiri are inevitable; . . . both write with naked honesty about the uneasy generational divide among Indians in America and about family in all its permutations.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[Jacob] has a wonderful flair for recreating the messy sprawl of family life, with all its joy, sadness, frustration, and anger.”—Publishers Weekly “Jacob’s writing is refreshing, and she excels at creating a powerful bond between the reader and her characters, all wonderfully drawn and with idiosyncratic natures—the mother, Kamala, for instance, is a born-again Christian—that make them enchanting. Recommended for those who like engaging fiction that succeeds in addressing serious issues with some humor.”—Library Journal “A memorable and dramatic portrait of a family in flux.”—Booklist“Punchy, clever, and stuffed with delicious chapatis, Mira Jacob’s first novel jumps effortlessly from India to the States, creating a vibrant portrait of a world in flux.”—Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure “The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing seizes the reader early and never lets go. Its electricities reside in Mira Jacob’s acute details and the sadness, anger, and humor of her characters. This novel tells many wonderful stories while also telling, beautifully, the story that counts the most.”—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Fun Parts “Mira Jacob has written an utterly dazzling, epic debut. The story of an Indian American family is at once completely relatable and totally fresh. A beautifully timed novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is intricately woven and sparklingly played out, and it triumphs. I did not want this breathtaking book to end.”—Julie Klam, author of Friendkeeping “I read this in one sitting. I couldn’t have stopped—wouldn’t even have noticed—if my house had caught fire. Mira Jacob is a born storyteller and a fantastic writer. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is a truly great book.”—Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life “The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is a time-traveling multigenerational saga that still remains intimate in its feel and central focus. For all of its witty and loving attention to the power of familial bonds, it is most eloquent on the subject of a grief so profound that its everyday weight pulls the grievers closer to the dead than to the living. And yet the overall effect, miraculously, is celebratory.”—Jim Shepard, author of You Think That’s Bad “The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is an effortlessly gorgeous and rich book. Its prose is lovely and precise, alternately luminous and direct; its observations of people and families and the physical world are poignant and a delight. The dialogue is sharp, funny, and true. This is a triumphant debut!”—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! “What a thrill to discover Mira Jacob, a warm, witty new voice in American fiction. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is both rich and wise. I savored every page.”—Amanda Eyre Ward, author of How to Be LostFrom the Hardcover edition.
About the Author Mira Jacob is the founder of Pete’s Reading Series in New York City and has an MFA from the New School for Social Research. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is her first novel.From the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful. Satisfying, Delicious Read By O. Merce Brown *****This epic novel does indeed span multiple generations of an Indian family--but it does not involve any "time travel"--instead it suspensefully alternates between the past and the present as the reader gets to see--bit by big--this Indian family now living in American evolve, grow, and weather changes and challenges. In going back and forth (between the 70's and the late 90's) in chapter sections, the reader becomes captivated by the story line of this psychological drama and wonders what will happen next. I could hardly put the book down as I became more and more aware of what really occurred years ago and what was actually occurring now.The novel started very, very slowly for me. I have no intrinsic interest in the Indian culture and wondered if I would continue with it. Then everything changed for me and I was drawn in. I fell in love with this big family, and most of all with the main characters. I loved seeing the differences in the generations as the plot unfolded and family secrets were revealed.I found the writing style of the author to be stunning--I actually got a highlighter and began marking sentences that were so beautiful I knew I would want to read them again...or they captured something so well I couldn't believe it. I don't normally highlight novels!This book is almost 500 satisfying pages. Even if the brief descriptions of this novel don't grab you--if you enjoy reading about families and their emotions, family secrets, thrilling epics that keep you up at night, or psychological novels, you will love this. If you enjoy that feeling of satisfaction that comes from a novel that feeds your heart, soul, and mind--one that will stay with you and that you won't want to give away afterwards, this is the book for you.Highly, highly recommended.*****
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful. It's All in the Family By Yours Truly Mira Jacob’s novel opens in Seattle where Amina Eapen gets a call from her mother, Kamala, in Albuquerque, saying that something is seriously wrong with her adored surgeon father, Thomas, who keeps talking to family members who are no longer alive. Putting aside her wedding photography assignments, Amina flies home to investigate.Although Amina and her brother, Akhil, were born in America, their parents were raised in India and came to the States over the objections of Thomas’s mother. The novel is set in three locations and got off to a very slow start for me. But because it was praised by writers I respect, I persisted, and I agree that this is a remarkable debut.Even for educated, affluent individuals, immigration can be an earth-shaking dislocation, and Ms. Jacob toggles between Albuquerque, Seattle and Salem, India, to connect the origins of the family’s suffering. She excels at illuminating the specifics of her characters’ pain. It seems inevitable that she will be compared with Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake, The Lowlands), but Jacobs has a distinctive, caring and witty voice and point view. She is particularly good at nailing the irritation family members create for each other without disturbing the underlying bonds they share. She is not yet a master of narrative, which I think sprawls a bit too loosely, but she meets the test at the saga’s crucial points in nailing the complicated reactions of the characters to trauma, of which there is plenty, and to the everyday.For me, the book grew more compelling as I read on, and the last several hundred pages were riveting. These are characters I found not only believable but enduring, as if they were people I knew and cared about.
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful. Epic, absorbing. I didn't want it to end! By "switterbug" Betsey Van Horn The author's note, at the end of the book, echoes the overarching themes:..."what it means, as an immigrant, to make a life in a stolen country."This luminous, addictive, page-turning, character-driven, and first-rate storytelling held me in its thrall from beginning to end. Yes, it had echoes of Jhumpa Lahiri (by virtue of evoking the Indian-American experience), and it also at times echoes Richard Ford's CANADA, as well as Richard Russo, John Irving, and any number of master storytellers that tell an epic story about family. I applaud Mira Jacob's decade-long investment in writing this book, as it gave me a few days of unadulterated bliss. I didn't want to say goodbye to the Eapen family when I turned the last page; at times, I felt them brushing against my arm, cupping my elbow, and feeding me samosas and chutney.The nuclear family here is Thomas Eapen, a neurosurgeon, Kamala, his wife, their intellectually gifted son, Akhil, and their photographer daughter, Amina. Only Amina was born in America. Through most of the novel, they live in Albuquerque, although Amina, as an adult, now lives in Seattle and works as an events photographer, after leaving the serious business of photojournalism. The novel alternates back and forth between the early 80's and 1998, but the offstage history is woven in seamlessly. I don't want to reveal more of the story than is told in the book jacket. There's a lot of discovery that is meant for the reader to unearth. And, even though a tragedy is revealed early on (in a handful of words), the narrative keeps you on tenterhooks until you actually get there, hundreds of pages later.This isn't a book with political polemics or sermons about social justice--but there is a lot of delicious Indian food that made me hungry. It's a domestic drama about a family dealing with love, loss, adjustment, flux, sleepwalking, and candid photos--a very human drama that is also witty and sharply observed. It moves swiftly, a charismatic, unputdownable tale told with levity and moving intensity. Jacob's prose is astute and intrepid, the kind of sentences that get into your blood, and is laced with smooth and cinematic dialogue.
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