"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?" — Los Angeles Times
“Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.” — Time
“The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly different paths in life.… Moving, honest.… A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author’s desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.” — Booklist
“Readers will connect with Dutta, relishing his success and sharing his frustration.... An insightful read about the strength of individuals to overcome adversity, reminding us that while our past and family do contribute to our identity, they do not define who we become.” — Library Journal
“Moving from India to Los Angeles, from a chaotic and difficult upbringing to a life of fulfillment, Sunil Dutta thoughtfully examines a timeless question: can we control the course of our own lives? At once electrifying and heartrending, Stealing Green Mangoes tests the bonds of love and family, offering a moving meditation on how we might make peace with the world around us.” — Jason Rezaian, journalist and author of Prisoner
“Stealing Green Mangoes is a wrenching and spiritual memoir, a profound exploration of the people and places who made us and the choices we then made. Dutta effortlessly traverses time and continents in this unique examination of brotherly love.” — Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street and Wonder Valley
“Stealing Green Mangoes has it all: social upheaval, petty crime, despair, poetry, true love, collective trauma, dueling brothers, and a protagonist struggling to understand the impulses that drive human beings toward violence while trying desperately to shake himself free from the nightmare of history.” — Josh Rosenblatt, author of Why We Fight
“A gut-wrenching, poetic account of an impoverished boyhood in India, the love story that took him to America, the remarkable life that encompassed a serial-killer brother, academic triumphs, classical Indian music, a career with the LAPD, and then cancer.... This memoir crowds life, despair, death, and a thousand poetic references into too few pages.” — Eloisa James, author of Paris in Love
Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.
Stealing Green Mangoes is a wrenching and spiritual memoir, a profound exploration of the people and places who made us and the choices we then made. Dutta effortlessly traverses time and continents in this unique examination of brotherly love.
Moving from India to Los Angeles, from a chaotic and difficult upbringing to a life of fulfillment, Sunil Dutta thoughtfully examines a timeless question: can we control the course of our own lives? At once electrifying and heartrending, Stealing Green Mangoes tests the bonds of love and family, offering a moving meditation on how we might make peace with the world around us.
A gut-wrenching, poetic account of an impoverished boyhood in India, the love story that took him to America, the remarkable life that encompassed a serial-killer brother, academic triumphs, classical Indian music, a career with the LAPD, and then cancer.... This memoir crowds life, despair, death, and a thousand poetic references into too few pages.
Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.
Stealing Green Mangoes has it all: social upheaval, petty crime, despair, poetry, true love, collective trauma, dueling brothers, and a protagonist struggling to understand the impulses that drive human beings toward violence while trying desperately to shake himself free from the nightmare of history.
"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?"
Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American…. An overall cracking-good read.
Facing a grim cancer diagnosis, author Sunil Dutta reflects on the childhood he shared with his brother Raju....Dutta’s memoir unpacks the pain of their shared past to make sense of the way their lives diverged as adults.
"Biting.... [This] thought-provoking book asks a central question: How did two brothers — both raised in poverty, abused at home and shaken by the family’s loss of status in a status-obsessed society — take such divergent paths?"
★ 2019-08-18
The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly different paths in life.
Dutta (Bloodlines: The Imperial Roots of Terrorism in South Asia, 2015, etc.) and his older brother, Kaushal ("Raju"), were born in the late 1960s to poor Hindu refugees in Jaipur. Their Indian father, a government clerk, had arrived in 1959, forced by the violence after the Partition to flee his homeland. From enjoying the status of Brahmin to living in a near-destitute condition, the family spiraled over the decades into "bitter shame" and familial squabbles, a toxic atmosphere in which Dutta and Raju were raised. While Raju was by nature precocious, charming, and daring, the author, in contrast, grew inward, becoming idealistic and shy. In moving, honest prose, Dutta follows the disparate trajectories of their lives. Raju became entangled in a relationship with a rich, older gay man, which propelled him into posh jet-setting and eventually a criminal life abroad. Meanwhile, the author fell in love with an American woman and followed her to America in 1986. Dutta went to school, became a research biologist and then, in an odd but determined turn, a police officer in Los Angeles and a professor of homeland security and issues-involved terrorism. Meanwhile, Raju descended into the life of a con man and, later, terrorist. Both were cancer survivors. The memoir opens with a shattering call from France, where Raju had married and was living, to notify the author that his brother had been incarcerated for murder. Throughout, Dutta captures the enormous sense of humiliation wrought by this crisis; in Indian society, he writes, "the responsibility for a crime lies not with the perpetrator, but with the entire family."
A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author's desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.
