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My Family and Other Saints | 
 enlarge | Author: Kirin Narayan
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 115593
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 246
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0226568210
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780226568218
ASIN: 0226568210
Publication Date: September 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
In 1969, young Kirin Narayan’s older brother, Rahoul, announced that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment with a guru. From boyhood, his restless creativity had continually surprised his family, but his departure shook up everyone— especially Kirin, who adored her high-spirited, charismatic brother.
A touching, funny, and always affectionate memoir, My Family and Other Saints traces the reverberations of Rahoul's spiritual journey through the entire family. As their beachside Bombay home becomes a crossroads for Westerners seeking Eastern enlightenment, Kirin’s sari-wearing American mother wholeheartedly embraces ashrams and gurus, adopting her son’s spiritual quest as her own. Her Indian father, however, coins the term “urug”—guru spelled backward—to mock these seekers, while young Kirin, surrounded by radiant holy men, parents drifting apart, and a motley of young, often eccentric Westerners, is left to find her own answers. Deftly recreating the turbulent emotional world of her bicultural adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of adulthood, Narayan presents a large, rambunctious cast of quirky characters. Throughout, she brings to life not just a family but also a time when just about everyone, it seemed, was consumed by some sort of spiritual quest.
“A lovely book about the author's youth in Bombay, India. . . . The family home becomes a magnet for truth-seekers, and Narayan is there to affectionately document all of it.”—Body + Soul “Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin Narayan's enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay.”—William Grimes, New York Times
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 A Spellbinding Memoir January 6, 2009
Loopy Book Club Editior (Eugene, OR)
My Family & Other Saints by Kirin Narayan, Copyright, 2007, The University of Chicago Press, 236 pages.
A spellbinding memoir told from the eyes of a middle class, little girl growing up in a small village near Bombay where her Indian father is an alcoholic and her American mother is an expatriate who befriends any and all hippies and urugs (guru searching Americans) that literally come knocking at her door. The story starts in the 1970's and ends soberly in 1985 when the writer is in college facing the loss of her oldest brother, Rahoul. Throughout the book, she tries to live the life of a traditional Indian girl but is surrounded by an untraditional, dysfunctional family who has a penchant for inviting into their lives a score of American tourists who are traveling through India making pilgrimages to various gurus in search of India's ancient, spiritual wisdom.
The exoticness of India and its holy men play like a character throughout the book shaping her, her family, and the spiritual seekers surrounding them as they try to grapple with ancient customs & traditions against the backdrop of westernize tourists in modern day India.
This book definitely is a rare treat, a true gem of a book. However, a Hindu/Sanskrit glossary would have been useful at times in understanding more thoroughly some of India's customs and heritage. Also, providing more background knowledge regarding some of the gurus and sadhus (holy men) mentioned would have made the story even more interesting.
 Delightful and poignant October 12, 2008
sadie
This beautifully written memoir captures a very special time and place--India in the 1960s and 1970s--from the narrator's unique perspective as a child of an American mother and Indian father. Narayan depicts her coming of age in a colorful, unconventional yet troubled family, whose members are pulled apart by their individual searches for solace or enlightenment, and lovingly brought back together on these pages. The various characters come vividly off the page, as does India itself as one of them. Narayan is a gifted writer who has given us a gift of a memoir.
Beyond a Memoir February 25, 2008
N. Sutor (Santa Fe NM)
This autobiographical work goes beyond the personal story to capture moments in time that include the author's grandmother in her sari playing solitare on a formica table. Contemporary design meets ancient Hindu traditions meets the beginnings of Bollywood. Maw's hosts the stream of western seekers and an older brother's care and companionship help a young woman survive and thrive in a confusing childhood.
My Family and Other Saints January 22, 2008
I laughed and I cried, and sometimes I laughed till I cried. This book is an extraodinary piece of writing about both ordinary and exceptional individuals living together and apart through complex times -- shaped by their cultural surroundings as well as their inner lives. Narayan captures the complexities of character -- her colorful portraits ring clear and true. I was deeply moved by all the people I met on this journey with a family and through an era brought to life with sensitivity, humor, sadness, and passion. I highly recommend it and look forward to her next work.
bruisingly honest memoir January 19, 2008
aenlic
I commend kirin narayan for her ability to write such an honest account of her youth. Her experience as a part indian, part american girl growing up in Bombay was very interesting. She has filled the pages with honesty, humor, her quest for herself, as well as what to make of the conditions surrounding her. It isn't often one encounters the sort of identity issues ms narayan faced. It makes complete sense that she ended up being a writer as well as an anthropology professor. i recommend this book to anyone who has faced identity issues and who needed to make sense of their world.
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