Stealing the Ambassador

Caught between a father who thought success and freedom could be found only in America and a grandfather who risked his life to guarantee such ideals in their homeland of India, twenty-three-year-old Rajiv Kothari is lost in a nation he has always called home and beckoned by the one his father left long ago. Stealing the Ambassador is a literary page-turner that blends the experiences of a first-generation Indian American with those of his immigrant father and revolutionary grandfather, their intertwined stories probing the balance between fiction and history, between old country and new, between fathers and sons. Following his father's sudden death, Rajiv finds himself alone and bewildered. As he attempts to reconstruct his father's life, he begins to better understand his own, and when he chances to meet a new Indian immigrant, eerily reminiscent of his own father, their uncanny interaction grants Rajiv insight into the euphoria that his father felt when he first arrived in the country and its gradual deterioration into frustrated estrangement. Events lead Rajiv to a reverse migration, back to the subcontinent of his father's birth. There he reconnects with his aged grandfather -- once a saboteur responsible for bombings in pre-Independence British India and now mysteriously destitute. Discovering the source of this impoverishment, Rajiv is awakened to a second understanding of his childhood hero, a reconsideration that illuminates the relationships between grandfather, father, and grandson while pointing to new definitions of bravery and familial loyalty. Stealing the Ambassador is a stunning debut from the young Sameer Parekh. In depicting the ways that families are at the source of both our frustration with and our loyalty to identity, Parekh sheds new light on the immigrant experience and on the complexity and power of family relations.

Review :
Rosellen Brown author of "Before and After" and "Half a Heart" Caught in the "demilitarized zone" between India and America, between a charged history and this very moment, Sameer Parekh's characters fight for a comfortable angle from which to see their lives whole. Parekh casts a light on the hope for a reconciliation amidst two loyalties, and, from the heart of the rich Indian story-telling tradition that delights while it illuminates, he has written a debut novel of uncommon authority, elegance, and passion. John Wray author of the "Right Hand of Sleep" and recipient of the Whiting Award A tantalizing double exposure, a contemporary immigrant's song...Mr. Parekh's India is luminous and unsentimental, his America is alluringly complex. "Stealing the Ambassador" has the ring of truth. Keith Fleming author of "The Boy with a Thorn in His Side, " a "New York Times" Notable Book On the broad canvas of his wonderful book, Sameer Parekh has woven together a prosperous but frivolous America with a sometimes seedy but always soulful India. The result is an engrossing, utterly convincing blend of surprises, humor, and shadows. The calm grasp of human character in its many varieties is reminiscent of the young Tolstoy. Marina Budhos author of "The Professor of Light" and "Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers""Stealing the Ambassador" is a sensitive and interesting probe into the distance traveled by fathers and sons, immigrants and second-generation children. Parekh has given us a nuanced glimpse into how a young man pieces together the complicated fragments of his background. A thoughtful addition to the growing body of Indian diaspora literature.