The first thing author Sunil Dutta describes in his biting new memoir, Stealing Green Mangoes, is the reality of trans-generational trauma ... His 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? ... Juxtaposed with his story are the crime-soaked escapades of his older brother, Raju, whom Sunil remembers with alternating love and intense shame ... Throughout the book Sunil broods on why he is obsessed with his brother’s negative path.
Dutta’s story is both unimaginable and utterly American ... Dutta also illuminates India-Pakistan history, and his personal fight with metastatic cancer. While certain sections lag and Dutta’s storytelling style is at times disjointed, this is an overall cracking-good read.
A dark thread of crime and violence poisons a family in this anguished memoir ... Throughout, Dutta combines gritty firsthand accounts of mayhem with dashes of philosophy ... Dutta’s remarkable family saga makes for a fascinating meditation on crime and responsibility.
The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly different paths in life ... In moving, honest prose, Dutta follows the disparate trajectories of their lives ... A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author’s desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.
