Latest news with #SameerPandya
NZ Herald
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Book of the day: Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya
Our Beautiful Boys: Sameer Pandya has produced a thought-provoking novel . Photo / Supplied / Brett Hall Jones If Jonathan Franzen attempted to write an American version of Brannavan Gnanalingam's Ockham-shortlisted Sprigs, I imagine the outcome would be similar to Sameer Pandya's sophomore novel. Our Beautiful Boys is a captivating examination of contemporary Californian families shocked by a brutal act of violence. When Vikram Shastri is scouted by
ABC News
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Mystery in new fiction from Ben Okri, Sameer Pandya and Anjet Daanje
The same question is at the heart of three very different international novels on The Bookshelf this week, 'What really happened'… To a WWI soldier who has forgotten his name and identity in The Remembered Soldier by Dutch author Anjet Daanje? To a fortune teller for the elite class in Ben Okri's Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-hearted? When four high achieving American boys entered a cave, and one emerged terribly hurt, In Sameer Pandya's Our Beautiful Boys? Keep scrolling for a full list of all books mentioned on this week's program. BOOKS Anjet Daanje, The Remembered Soldier (translated from the Dutch by David McKay), Scribe Anjet Daanje, The Remembered Soldier (translated from the Dutch by David McKay), Scribe Ben Okri, Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-hearted, Apollo Ben Okri, Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-hearted, Apollo Sameer Pandya, Our Beautiful Boys, Bloomsbury GUESTS Tom Wright, theatre writer and adapter, and Artistic Associate at Belvoir Street Theatre. Bronwyn Rivers, researcher and novelist whose debut, The Reunion was released this year. She also has a PhD on the 19th century novel. OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED Bronwyn Rivers, The Reunion Bronwyn Rivers, The Reunion Max Porter, Grief is the Thing With Feathers Max Porter, Grief is the Thing With Feathers Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock Ben Okri, The Famished Road Ben Okri, The Famished Road William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land William Shakespeare, As You Like It William Shakespeare, As You Like It T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men Ben Okri, The Freedom Artist Ben Okri, The Freedom Artist E. M. Forster, A Passage to India E. M. Forster, A Passage to India Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap Curzio Malaparte, The Skin Curzio Malaparte, The Skin Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob Victor Hugo, Les Misérables Victor Hugo, Les Misérables Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Novel CREDITS
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya review – teenage lives at the crossroads
The Marabar caves in A Passage to India represent the breakdown of order and communication as well as provoking the terrible accusation that drives EM Forster's story. Sameer Pandya plays with a similar plot device in his compelling US-based novel, including an epigraph from Forster's classic. It is set in southern California, where three teenage boys on the brink of adulthood – stars of their high school American football team with promising college careers ahead of them – attend a party at an abandoned house in the hills. Vikram is an Indian American, while Diego, who is Latino, lives with his academic mother. MJ is white with wealthy parents. Part of the pleasure of Pandya's writing lies in his unravelling of identity politics – a theme explored in his debut, Members Only. In one of three ancient caves, the teenagers confront Stanley Kincaid, a school bully and drug dealer. He drunkenly lunges at them and they hit back to 'calm him down'. Later Stanley emerges from the cave bloodied and battered and accuses the boys of assaulting him, claiming that one of them returned and beat him so badly he had to pretend to pass out. Stanley is hospitalised, the boys are suspended and their brilliant trajectories into college are abruptly threatened. As the school principal investigates the various rumours swirling around the school and tries to ascertain what actually happened, the families meet to assess and limit the damage to their children's prospects. Along the way we learn of their troubled professional and home lives and realise the boys are carrying the weight of their parents' expectations. Pandya, an associate professor in Asian-American studies at the University of California, clearly knows this world. He gets under the skin of his three principals, their hopes, aspirations and uncertainties, contrasting these with the ideals and politics of their parents. Our Beautiful Boys reveals the inequality of America's education system – how it rewards those with money and influence – and is a profound meditation on identity, class, privilege and masculinity. Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
