Washington: Indian American novelist Akhil Sharma's second book "Family Life" is among the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2014.
The Delhi-born author's semi-autobiographical story is about a family that immigrates from India to Queens and has just begun to build a new life when the elder son suffers severe brain damage in a swimming pool accident.
The book was earlier quoted amongst the Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2014 in the Fiction and Poetry section.
The paper describes the book as "deeply unnerving and gorgeously tender".
"The book chronicles how grief renders the parents unable to cherish and raise their other son; love, it suggests, becomes warped and jagged and even seemingly vanishes in the midst of mourning," the paper notes.
Sharma, immigrated to the US when he was eight grew up in Jersey and studied at the Princeton University. His first novel "An Obedient Father" won him the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award.
His short story "Cosmopolitan" was anthologised in "The Best American Short Stories (1998)" and was also made into an acclaimed 2003 film of the same name.
Meanwhile, "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, "Dept of Speculation" by Jenny Offill, "Euphoria" by Lily King, and "Redeployment" by Phil Klay are among the Times list.
