9780062849120
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America for Beginners audiobook

  • By: Leah Franqui
  • Narrator: Soneela Nankani
  • Category: Asian American, Fiction
  • Length: 11 hours 17 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: July 24, 2018
  • Language: English
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(4428 ratings)
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America for Beginners Audiobook Summary

Recalling contemporary classics such as Americanah, Behold the Dreamers, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a funny, poignant, and insightful debut novel that explores the complexities of family, immigration, prejudice, and the American Dream through meaningful and unlikely friendships forged in unusual circumstances.

Pival Sengupta has done something she never expected: she has booked a trip with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company. But unlike other upper-class Indians on a foreign holiday, the recently widowed Pival is not interested in sightseeing. She is traveling thousands of miles from Kolkota to New York on a cross-country journey to California, where she hopes to uncover the truth about her beloved son, Rahi. A year ago Rahi devastated his very traditional parents when he told them he was gay. Then, Pival’s husband, Ram, told her that their son had died suddenly–heartbreaking news she still refuses to accept. Now, with Ram gone, she is going to America to find Rahi, alive and whole or dead and gone, and come to terms with her own life.

Arriving in New York, the tour proves to be more complicated than anticipated. Planned by the company’s indefatigable owner, Ronnie Munshi–a hard-working immigrant and entrepreneur hungry for his own taste of the American dream–it is a work of haphazard improvisation. Pavil’s guide is the company’s new hire, the guileless and wonderfully resourceful Satya, who has been in America for one year–and has never actually left the five boroughs. For modesty’s sake Pival and Satya will be accompanied by Rebecca Elliot, an aspiring young actress. Eager for a paying gig, she’s along for the ride, because how hard can a two-week “working” vacation traveling across America be?

Slowly making her way from coast to coast with her unlikely companions, Pival finds that her understanding of her son–and her hopes of a reunion with him–are challenged by her growing knowledge of his adoptive country. As the bonds between this odd trio deepens, Pival, Satya, and Rebecca learn to see America–and themselves–in different and profound new ways.

A bittersweet and bighearted tale of forgiveness, hope, and acceptance, America for Beginners illuminates the unexpected enchantments life can hold, and reminds us that our most precious connections aren’t always the ones we seek.

This audiobook includes an episode of the Book Club Girl Podcast, featuring an interview with Leah Franqui about America for Beginners.

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America for Beginners Audiobook Narrator

Soneela Nankani is the narrator of America for Beginners audiobook that was written by Leah Franqui

Leah Franqui is a graduate of Yale University and received an MFA at NYU-Tisch. She is a playwright and the recipient of the 2013 Goldberg Playwriting Award, and also wrote a web series for which she received the Alfred Sloan Foundation Screenwriting award (aftereverafterwebseries.com). A Puerto Rican-Jewish Philadelphia native, Franqui lives with her Kolkata-born husband in Mumbai. AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS is her first novel.

About the Author(s) of America for Beginners

Leah Franqui is the author of America for Beginners

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America for Beginners Full Details

Narrator Soneela Nankani
Length 11 hours 17 minutes
Author Leah Franqui
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date July 24, 2018
ISBN 9780062849120

Subjects

The publisher of the America for Beginners is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Asian American, Fiction

Additional info

The publisher of the America for Beginners is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062849120.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Dr. Appu

January 18, 2023

This is the story of a mother who travels to America to find his missing son. There are a lot of relevant contemporary themes embedded in it. The topics pertaining to the pressures faced during migration to a different country, difficulties of people belonging to the LGBT community, how conservative families react to coming out, inclusion, racism, and many others are discussed in this book. Even though the topics discussed are very serious ones, the author tries to convey them in a simple and entertaining way in the book.

DJ

August 01, 2019

Favorite Quotes:They had raised Rebecca with strong assurances that she could be anything she wanted to be, and then, like so many American parents, were surprised and dismayed when she believed them. He ate ravenously at every meal, piling on plate after plate of rice and patting his nonexistent stomach after the waiters politely told him, as they had at each place, that he couldn’t have any more of the buffet, because had exceeded what they had imagined “all you can eat" could possibly mean. “No.” Mrs. Sengupta said it with the gentleness of a falling feather and the finality of a bag of lead. … Jake’s knowledge of Judaism consisted of jokes made in Woody Allen movies and dishes he at in delis. My Review:I was stunned, astounded, and deeply awed to learn that this deftly written and thoughtfully crafted story was the author’s first book. It was superb at its lowest level and beyond divine at its zenith. I was quite taken by Ms. Franqui’s agility in conveying those elusive emotional tones, startling epiphanies, and shifts in thought. Her wry humor was clever and shrewdly placed. I was fully invested in every oddly compelling character and each well-scaffolded storyline, even though their vastly different cultural issues and disparities were completely unfamiliar and foreign to my thinking, their emotional conflicts and feelings of dissatisfaction and discontent were intensely relatable. I was captivated, enthralled, and mesmerized by Ms. Franqui’s cunningly constructed tale and found myself reading slowly to savor and contemplate each nuance. Ms. Franqui has mad skills and a rabid new fangirl.

Rohan

March 12, 2018

America for Beginners is an extraordinary debut by Leah Franqui. Once I finished the book, it gave me a tremendous sense of lightness and hope. It is something I wanted from a book for a while as I struggle to find a sense of hope from the world nowadays. After so many authors telling me what is wrong with the world and humanity, it warmed my heart to read something that told what was beautiful about humanity. In a world where nations and society are constantly looking inwards, America for Beginners shines a bright light on the idea that the borders that divide us are just lines in the sand. Only if we look up and across the line at another human being rather than looking down and staying behind, can we learn to love others which then helps us love ourselves.

Carole

March 14, 2018

What a curious and complex cast of characters Leah Frangui created for her debut novel. A wealthy but naive widow from Kolkata with a Bangladeshi immigrant posing as an Indian tour guide and a feisty down-and-out actress as companion lead the troupe in their (and the reader's vicarious) journey across the USA. Add to these the voices of the vividly drawn supporting characters and there emerges a narrative that is compelling in its humor and its pathos. At some scenes I laughed out loud; at others, I wept. The characters, flawed as they are, ring true in their grief, guilt, and prejudices, and in their quests for acceptance, forgiveness, and a small slice of American freedom. Are the loose ends at the novel's finish too nearly tied up? Perhaps. But the lasting impressions for this reader were of joy and hope.

Kate

July 23, 2018

Thanks to William Morrow and TLC Book Tours for this free review copy!.What a heartwarming and eye opening view of the US from an foreigner's perspective ~ I learned so much about my own country during the course of this novel, as well as about India and Bangladesh. AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS brings us an Indian widow learning to be alone and coming to terms with her son's sexuality and her own former classist/homophobic beliefs, all during a whirlwind trip across the US with a motley pair of traveling companions. I loved this book and learned from this book, and am blown away by the fact that although the author does now live in Kolkata with her Mumbai-born husband, she herself is not Indian. I'm fascinated with how much research she must have had to do to write so convincingly from a cultural and racial viewpoint not her own. .If you are looking for a story of motherhood, culture, and belonging and learning to live again, definitely add this to your TBR!

Julia

January 19, 2018

Pival Sengupta has never left Kolkata when she books a trip to America with an Indian travel company, but nothing in this road trip novel is exactly what it seems. Starting with the trip, which has a Bangladeshi, not Indian guide, and a female chaperone who is a young American actress. But also Pival, who is not on the trip to see America, but is hoping to find her son, who might be dead and whom the family cut off after he came out as gay. This novel has so much empathy for all of its characters that it's impossible not to be moved by these people figuring out who they are and what America means, looking at their own biases and assumptions and trying to learn how to see things through new eyes. It's the perfect antidote to Trumptime and I was so desperate to know how it ended that I almost cheated and skipped ahead. A perfect book.

Sylvia

March 14, 2018

What an appealing book. Three unique and sympathetic characters take a trip across America with multicultural confusions and prejudices that are slowly overcome by compassion and friendship. A pleasure to read.

Kate

August 09, 2019

If you could travel to any place, what would be the one destination in America that you'd want to visit?In America for Beginners, sometimes you need to go a long way, before you actually find what you are looking for.Pival has left India, the only place in the world that she has ever known, to take a trip to America. Widowed and alone, but very wealthy, she enlists quite the cast of characters to take her on a cross country tour. The First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company, hilariously named, mostly because it is ran by a man from Bangladesh, his brand new tour guide (also from Bangladesh), and a struggling NYC actress who takes the job as a "companion" on a whim, take Pival on the ultimate road trip from NYC to CA. But what they don't know is that Pival has a hidden agenda. Her son came out to his parents many years ago, and things did not go well. Now that her husband is gone, she is in search of answers as to what became of her son since he fled to America all those years ago.The relationships that build along the trip are so fun and heartwarming, and the story is full of a lot of emotion and humor. There are quite a few highly entertaining episodes as cultural differences clash and I found myself laughing out loud at some of the absurd sayings and slang we have here that must be so confusing to those of other countries.Although Pival is not from America and the culture is so very different, it was so very much relatable still as she finds herself, builds her confidence in an entirely foreign country, faces a host of familiar familial issues, and builds some very surprising friendships.An incredible debut. Highly recommend. Now out in paperback!

Wendy

March 18, 2018

Stirring and touching, “America for Beginners” which I won through Goodreads Giveaways begins when recently widowed Pival Sengupta a Bengali woman who has never travelled outside her home in Kolkata takes a cross-country tour from New York City to California with her guide Satya Roy and female chaperone Rebecca Eliot. On a trip where she’s determined to find out whether her beloved son Rahi who was ostracized by his father after declaring he was gay is alive or dead, and to end her life, Pival unwittingly becomes enmeshed in the emotional upheaval of her two companions; one a Bangladeshi immigrant struggling to find a place in his new country, and the other a promiscuous unemployed actress who feels like a failure.Well-written and compelling Pival and her companions explore America each armed with their own preconceived ideas and biases. Woven into the challenges of the cities, sights and food they explore, Leah Frangui brings to life experiences in their past that have moulded their perceptions of their environment as well as giving glimpses into their pain, frustration, heartache and grief in their search for acceptance, redemption, hope and happiness. Emotionally-charged and intense, the author skillfully weaves in a love affair that resonates with the upbringing in two environments; one ruled by fear and disappointment ingrained from rigid structures of duty and the crushing weight of family opinions that Bhim (Rahi) grew up in contrasted against the freedom in America that has given Jake self-awareness and confidence. Smoothly and quickly as tensions mount with the meeting between Jake and Pival the story progresses to a fascinating climax.Bringing the story to life are complex and realistic characters with all their weaknesses and strengths like Pival Sengupta the widow of Ram, a controlling, judgemental and manipulative husband who was contained, appropriate and often cruel. A smart, lively, spirited young woman before she married, over the years Pival has adapted becoming insecure, meek and lonely; succumbing to the wishes of her husband and ruled even by the household maids who supposedly make her life comfortable. Satya Roy the young tour guide from Bangladesh impoverished and hungry in his country, leaves after his grandmother dies, hoping to find freedom and prosperity in America. Although feeling worthless after his betrayal of a friend, in his new job he’s quick-witted, respectful and eager to please. In contrast well-bred, educated, and self-confident Rebecca Eliot burns bright, wanting all that life has to offer but feeling like a failure when her dreams of an acting career haven’t gelled. Yet the only daughter in a loving, academic Jewish family, she’s kind, responsible, cheerful and competent, although often impulsive. I thoroughly enjoyed “America for Beginners” and highly recommend it.

Vikas

April 18, 2020

My rating for this book is around 3.5 (We really need the half star rating system on GR, Stat) well coming to the book this was a nice enough read I was really impressed about the writing about India and Bangladesh which Leah captured wonderfully and I am sure that being married to a Bengali guy really helped in this regard. Coming back to the book it's the story of three individuals who are thrown together when a widow from India Pival decides to travel to America on the pretext of traveling but really to find out if her son is really dead or her husband lied about their Son who had informed them that he was gay. Then there is Satya from Bangladesh who tries to act as an Indian and an American Rebecca who is a struggling Actress. For the tour, they call come together and while traveling through America they all experience it while also finding of themselves. It was nice to read And I hope that more people get to read this.So if you do get the chance then read it and hope you would also like it and once you have picked it then just Keep on Reading.People who don't read generally ask me my reasons for reading. Simply put I just love reading and so to that end I have made it my motto to just Keep on Reading. I love to read everything except for Self Help books but even those once in a while. I read almost all the genre but YA, Fantasy, Biographies are the most. My favorite series is, of course, Harry Potter but then there are many more books that I just adore. I have bookcases filled with books which are waiting to be read so can't stay and spend more time in this review, so remember I loved reading this and love reading more, you should also read what you love and then just Keep on Reading.

Carly

September 28, 2018

The synopsis of this novel immediately pulled me in. It took me a while to finish, and at times I found my thoughts wandering, but I absolutely loved reading it. America for Beginners follows the lives of three diverse strangers who find themselves bound together. Pival is a recent widow who plans to visit the US with an Indian tour company. She is not just hoping to see the sights, but also discover the whereabouts of her estranged son. Satya is hired as her tour guide. He comes from Bangladesh and has only been in the US for a year. He is struggling to find a stable income and make ends meet. Pival requests to also have a female companion for her comfort and security. Rebecca is hired, a struggling actress who is also having a hard time finding jobs. As they travel across the US, they entire into a friendship and come to deeply care for each other.One of my favorite parts of the novel was the character development of each of those unique individuals. They start out with many cultural misconceptions and judgement, but learn to overlook their differences and understand each other. Franqui introduces many cultures and the different values we each have. The characters each learn what America means to them and that they do not need to fit in if they do not wish to do so.I came to greatly care for each of these characters and felt as though I had really gotten to know them. This is a wonderful novel for anyone who has felt a little lost or wants to see their world from someone else's eyes.

Sue

July 03, 2019

I was not prepared for this jewel of a novel. I had no idea what this book was about as it unfolded over the coast to coast tour booked by a widow who had never been out of Kolkata, India. Although we are privy to her reason for taking this tour, it is abruptly revealed to her traveling companions and it changes the lives of everyone involved in unforeseen ways. The ending was truly lovely, there was laughter, and, yes, tears. Leah Franqui's writing is masterful.

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