You can dream all you like about the family you want,but you can’t take on life without the family you have.
When Mira Acharya’s father dies, the challenges facing her Indo-Canadian family become that much more daunting. Ravi, her autistic older brother, requires special care but longs to be just like other children. Their mother must work full time to keep a roof over their heads and still make time to be a
parent to an over-achiever and a developmentally challenged child. As much as Mira loves her mother and brother, she resents the situations in which living with them places her.
It is only when Mira is older that she realizes a truth she has been missing all along: though her family’s experience may be unusual, what holds them together—has always held them together—is universal. Shashi Bhat’s debut novel, The Family Took Shape, is a touching, hilarious, and endearingly honest story about one unique family’s search for happiness in Canadian suburbia.
- Fiction
The Family Took Shape
About the author
Shashi Bhat
Shashi Bhat is the author of two books of fiction, most recently The Most Precious Substance on Earth (McClelland & Stewart). She won the 2018 Journey Prize, has appeared in Best Canadian Stories, is editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine, and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.
by