Brierley, Saroo. A Long Way Home: A Memoir. New York: Putnam Sons. 2013. Print
First Sentences:
They're gone.
I've been thinking about this day for twenty-five years. Growing up half a world away, with a new name and a new family, wondering whether I would ever see my mother and brothers and sister again. And now here I am, standing at a door near the corner of a run-down building in a poor district of a small, dusty town in central India -- the place I grew up -- and no one lives here. It's empty.
The last time I stood on this ground, I was five years old.
Description:
Imagine yourself at age five, sitting patiently on a train platform waiting for your older brother. When he doesn't return, you think he already jumped a train home, so you hop into an empty rail car that unfortunately locks behind you and prevents you from exiting. When the train finally stops, you find yourself hundreds of miles away in one of the world's largest train stations in Calcutta, India, alone.
A Long Way Home: A Memoir is the true adventure of Saroo Brierley, a five-year-old boy who gets lost in a foreign city. Illiterate, not even sure of his own name or the name of his
hometown, he must live by his wits for several weeks in the train station and on the nearby streets, his pleas for help ignored by everyone. Each day he selects a train and rides it to the end of it run, hoping that the train might be the same one that brought him to Calcutta and might now return him home. Day after day he rides, never seeing any familiar station, nor conductor or adult who might question a solitary child in the car or station.
He is eventually picked up by police and taken to a shelter for homeless children, a very dangerous place with threats coming from both inside and outside its walls. Luckily, he is transferred to an orphanage and eventually adopted by a loving family in Australia.
But as he grows up, he still remember his Indian home with his older brother, his mother, and younger sister. Because he cannot remember the exact name of his tiny city, using Google Earth he begins to trace each of the hundreds of railroad lines flowing in and out of Calcutta and explore aerial views of the towns along those tracks, hoping to spot a landmark he remembers. It is the work of years, but (as Brierley reveals in the opening sentences) he eventually discovers what he thinks could be his family home.
But what of his mother? What happened that night when he and his brother were separated? Why was he not able to get off the train? How far had he actually come from his village? And what does all this mean to his new parents and life in Australia? Many questions remain that can only be resolved by visiting this tiny city, his possible familial home.
The fact that Brierley wrote about his return to his Indian home in his first lines makes the book not a "will he or won't he find his family" story, but rather one that focuses on the journey taken to get to that point. It is the day-by-day recollections of a myriad of experiences of a five-year-old and later college-age man, taking readers into his world of survival and searching, living on the streets, the people who befriend or threaten him, and the family that loves him in Australia.
Brierley is an extraordinary story-teller, clearly weaving his life experiences into a gripping, compelling tale that reveals both the vast anonymity and poverty of the Indian environment as well as intimate thoughts and actions of one little boy and later a man struggling to find his home and family. His story has become internationally famous and now there is even a movie possibility, quite a giant step for a lost, illiterate, and poverty-stricken five-year-old,
It is a riveting story of triumph, discovery, and personal drive to survive and reach for answers to questions despite impossible obstacles. Wonderful, inspiring, and eye-opening.
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping: A Novel
Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career
They're gone.
I've been thinking about this day for twenty-five years. Growing up half a world away, with a new name and a new family, wondering whether I would ever see my mother and brothers and sister again. And now here I am, standing at a door near the corner of a run-down building in a poor district of a small, dusty town in central India -- the place I grew up -- and no one lives here. It's empty.
The last time I stood on this ground, I was five years old.
Description:
Imagine yourself at age five, sitting patiently on a train platform waiting for your older brother. When he doesn't return, you think he already jumped a train home, so you hop into an empty rail car that unfortunately locks behind you and prevents you from exiting. When the train finally stops, you find yourself hundreds of miles away in one of the world's largest train stations in Calcutta, India, alone.
A Long Way Home: A Memoir is the true adventure of Saroo Brierley, a five-year-old boy who gets lost in a foreign city. Illiterate, not even sure of his own name or the name of his
hometown, he must live by his wits for several weeks in the train station and on the nearby streets, his pleas for help ignored by everyone. Each day he selects a train and rides it to the end of it run, hoping that the train might be the same one that brought him to Calcutta and might now return him home. Day after day he rides, never seeing any familiar station, nor conductor or adult who might question a solitary child in the car or station.
He is eventually picked up by police and taken to a shelter for homeless children, a very dangerous place with threats coming from both inside and outside its walls. Luckily, he is transferred to an orphanage and eventually adopted by a loving family in Australia.
But as he grows up, he still remember his Indian home with his older brother, his mother, and younger sister. Because he cannot remember the exact name of his tiny city, using Google Earth he begins to trace each of the hundreds of railroad lines flowing in and out of Calcutta and explore aerial views of the towns along those tracks, hoping to spot a landmark he remembers. It is the work of years, but (as Brierley reveals in the opening sentences) he eventually discovers what he thinks could be his family home.
But what of his mother? What happened that night when he and his brother were separated? Why was he not able to get off the train? How far had he actually come from his village? And what does all this mean to his new parents and life in Australia? Many questions remain that can only be resolved by visiting this tiny city, his possible familial home.
The fact that Brierley wrote about his return to his Indian home in his first lines makes the book not a "will he or won't he find his family" story, but rather one that focuses on the journey taken to get to that point. It is the day-by-day recollections of a myriad of experiences of a five-year-old and later college-age man, taking readers into his world of survival and searching, living on the streets, the people who befriend or threaten him, and the family that loves him in Australia.
Brierley is an extraordinary story-teller, clearly weaving his life experiences into a gripping, compelling tale that reveals both the vast anonymity and poverty of the Indian environment as well as intimate thoughts and actions of one little boy and later a man struggling to find his home and family. His story has become internationally famous and now there is even a movie possibility, quite a giant step for a lost, illiterate, and poverty-stricken five-year-old,
It is a riveting story of triumph, discovery, and personal drive to survive and reach for answers to questions despite impossible obstacles. Wonderful, inspiring, and eye-opening.
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping: A Novel
Another look at the world of a child trying to cope in the confusing world of loneliness, quirkiness, and family. Not quite the same story as Saroo's in losing a parent, but the young girl here is raised by a uniquely odd aunt and describes her feelings of survival and coping honestly and touchingly. I just love this book, so wanted to recommend it even if it is not exactly like Long Way Home. So there.
Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career
Written when only 19 years old, author Miles Franklin recalls at her life in Australia in the 1890s which she found wanting for a budding writer. Her family life goes from humble origins to enjoying a world with a wealthy grandmother to teaching and living on a squalid farm. Wonderfully poignant and well-written, a classic in every sense of the word.
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