"The Namesake" is a realistic fiction book by Jhumpa Lahiri. The book takes place in many different places including Calcutta, India, and in various places in The United States. It takes place about thirty years ago, and like many realistic fiction books, depicts the life of an ordinary Indian family that moved to America from India.
Gogol Ganguli, a smart, American Indian boy who is born in America to parents who emigrated from Calcutta, India is the protagonist of the story. He does not like his name, "Gogol", and hates being compared to his namesake, Nikolai Gogol, and is embarrassed by it. Throughout the book, he has a hard time trying to become "Americanized", while his parents want him to stay "Indian".
The book starts off with Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli, delivering their first baby. Ashoke and Ashima, had had an arranged marriage in India, and had then decided to move to the United States. At the hospital, when they are asked by the hospital nurses, what they are going to name him, because they need to write his birth certificate, they do not know yet. They are still waiting for a letter from the baby's grandmother, who is designated to name him. Helplessly, they finally decide on a name, Gogol, after an author that Ashoke, Gogol's father was emotionally connected to.
Gogol grows up, in America, and despite his parents efforts to keep him "Indianized", he starts behaving like his American friends and doing the same things that they do. For example, his parents did not know about him secretly smoking pot with his friends, or him going to late night parties. Despite all of that, he still gets good grades, and gets into Yale University. At Yale, Gogol learns about his namesake, Nicolai Gogol, and that he was a mentally unstable pariah, and starts to hate his name. Because of this, he changes it to Nikhil, and makes Gogol into his middle name.
A few years pass, and Gogol becomes an architect, and falls in love with an American girl called Maxine. He starts to live with her family, and slowly becomes more and more closer to her family, and starts to move away from his. For example, he starts to go on vacations with her family, and not with his family, and starts spending most of his time at her house. With Maxine's family, Gogol is slowly becoming more "Americanized", a thing that his parents had always tried to keep him away from, despite Gogol being a little embarrassed about his origins. Gogol had started to become closer to Maxine's way of life and thinking, and had moved away from his parents' ways.
One day, Gogol gets a call from his mother, who asks him to come to her house, to see off his father. His father was going on a business trip to Cleveland for a few months, and it was always the Ganguli family's custom to all go to the airport to see their family member off. Gogol who had already made plans to go on a vacation with Maxine and her parents to a place in New Hampshire, says that he cannot come, but finally agrees to come to say bye to his father with Maxine, even though he won't be able to see him off. The next day, Gogol and Maxine visit Gogol's parents, and awkwardly have lunch with them. Then, Gogol says bye to his father, and with Maxine, leaves to go on his vacation to New Hampshire.
In New Hampshire, Maxine's parents have a house, in which they all stay. After a few days of vacationing there, Gogol gets a call from his mother. She informs him that his father had had a massive heart attack, and had died. Gogol goes down to his father's apartment in Cleveland, to collect his belongings. While he is there, he realizes that he needs to fulfill his duties as a son, and now that his father has died, he needs to take responsibility for the family. When Gogol returns to his mother's house, he reads a book, called "The Overcoat", which his father had given to him before, but he had never read. Just remembering his father, made him realize that he should be like his father, and not be selfish about himself.
After staying with his mother for a few weeks, and performing all the required Bengali rituals, Gogol decides that he has to go back to his work. When he returns to his apartment, he has a fight with Maxine and breaks up with her. He has realized that he should do what his parents had always wanted him to do, and marry a Bengali girl. A few months later, his mother refers to him, a Bengali girl called Moushumi, who he starts going out with. After a year, he asks her to marry him, and she says yes.
Gogol lives with Moushumi for a while, happy that he has done what his parents had always wanted him to, and married an Indian girl. One day, he finds out that Moushumi is having an affair with another man, and he divorces her. This brings him to concluding that just because he is Bengali, it does not meant that he is going to find happiness in just a Bengali girl, and that he can marry anyone. The book ends, with him thinking that he is now free to do what he pleases without having to worry about a trouble in his life.
