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A Long Way Home (2013)

by Saroo Brierley(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Penguin Aus. Imprint:Viking

review 1: Saroo Brierly gets lost on a train in his native India and his entire world is changed. In this memoir, Brierly takes us through his impoverished childhood, the fateful train ride, his subsequent adoption by an Australian couple and then his return to India at age 30. The story is gripping and inspiring. There are moments when Brierly bogs us down a bit with the tedious details of his searching for his home town and again for the train line that took him away, but overall the book is very interesting. The entire time I read this book I was wishing there was a map of India included to show me where in India Brierly was focusing on. I found out at the very end of the book on one of the last pages after the epilogue there is indeed a map of India--be adv... moreised.
review 2: One man's journey to finding his biological family. At the age of about 5, Saroo Brierley goes off with his older brother on an adventure. He is from a poor family in India, has had no formal schooling and is basically learning how to survive like many of his neighbors and fellow Indians. However, this journey with his brother will forever change his life. I had first heard of his story via a Google Earth/Maps video. It turns out that Saroo would use the technology of Google Maps and Earth (as well as Facebook and the internet in general) to locate his hometown and eventually his family. The video understandably makes it a big deal that he used Google to find it, but this book is more about his journey from his hometown and back again. Saroo survives on the streets for a time (few weeks or months), which I found incredible considering he was only 5-6 years old. He tries to find his way back via taking various trains, but he has no idea where he's from or how to get home. Eventually he begins surviving on the streets, digging for scraps, hanging out with other groups of children, occasionally begging and finding the occasional kindness of strangers. However, not all people are nice. Saroo strongly suspects a railway worker introduced him to a friend who had other intentions in mind. He sees a group of children awoken and possibly abducted--he then flees and has no idea what happened to them. Saroo eventually makes his way to an orphanage (after the authorities cannot determine where he is from [he can't quite correctly pronounce the name of his home area] or if his parents are even alive), which was better than his previous situation, but with uncaring/overwhelmed staff, bullying and sexual/physical abuse is not uncommon. Yet, for the most part the author manages to escape the worst (he does get bullied and sometimes is at the end of some violence from bigger kids) and is eventually adopted by a family in Australia. He grows up there, learns English and seems fairly well-adjusted, although of course he still has questions (which ebb and flow over time). Eventually when in college he has access to tools like high speed internet 24 hours a day and has access to social media like Facebook (which seems to have been in its infant stages when he started school, but he begins posting as he becomes truly serious about finding answers). It takes time, (unfortunately Saroo's memories as a child are subjective, and so he acknowledges misremembering the original journey), but Saroo does find his biological mother and siblings. Amusingly, he finds his formal name is "Sheru" (or "lion" in Hindi) but says he will be forever Saroo. He retraces his steps, including the train journey, the orphanage he was brought to and visits the woman who helped facilitate his adoption to his Australian family. But unfortunately not all of this story is happy. He finds out the older brother he journeyed with was killed, run over by a train. The author says he has no idea if it had been an accidental, if he had been pushed, if his brother realized Saroo was missing and had been trying to find him. There is no way to know. And in retrospect, Saroo acknowledges he was quite lucky. If he had not gone on the trip, he might not have ever gone to school in Australia or been able to have access to the opportunities he and his adoptive brother had. That he made it TO Australia relatively unscathed was a minor miracle: children are often taken for trafficking purposes, slave labor, even their organs. Saroo mentions his own adoptive brother had been at the same orphanage he had been at and unfortunately had been sexually and physically abused there. And that Saroo's formal adoption process took a few months rather than years it takes today. Saroo expresses gratitude throughout the book and at the end, saying that he is wasn't compelled to convert to a particular religion, but the entire experiences (as well as having the general media, both Indian and Australian take interest) definitely made him think. It was an incredible journey for him and he is grateful for both his biological and adoptive families. It was a quick and compelling read, not long or difficult. It's my understanding this will be made into a movie, and I would imagine it would be quite interesting to watch. Be warned that the author doesn't really discuss adoption itself as a topic--he talks about how he is relatively well-adjusted and happy with his family (vs. his adoptive brother), but if you're looking for a fascinating page-turning, this would be a great book to pick up. less

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