You Bring the Distant Near (Perkins)

You Bring the Distant Near 
Mitali Perkins, 2017
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
320pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374304904


Summary
Nominated, 2017 National Book Awards

This elegant young adult novel captures the immigrant experience for one Indian-American family with humor and heart.

Told in alternating teen voices across three generations, You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture—for better or worse.

From a grandmother worried that her children are losing their Indian identity to a daughter wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair to a granddaughter social-activist fighting to preserve Bengali tigers, award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together the threads of a family growing into an American identity.

Here is a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Born—Kolkata, India
• Education—University of California-Berkeley
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay area, California


Mitali Perkins is an Indian-American writer, the author of 10 books for young readers. She was born in Kolkata (Calcuta), India, but by the time she was 11, she had lived in six different countries on three different continents, plus an island: India, Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York and Mexico. The family finally settled in California, in the US, when Mitali was just entering her teens.

Perkins attended the University of California-Berkeley, where she studied political science. Later, she taught in the elementary and middle-school grades, as well as college.

She currently resides in San Francisco, California, where she is married to a Presbyterian minister. Pekins is currently a lecturer at Saint Mary's College of California. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [U]nforgettable…. Perkins’s vibrantly written exploration of a family in transition is saturated with romance, humor, and meaningful reflections on patriotism, blended cultures, and carving one’s own path (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [C]aptures the unique and, at times, fraught experience of navigating multiple cultures. Perkins examines the delicate balance between meeting family expectations and attaining personal happiness.… [S]tunning. (Gr 9-up). —Lalitha Nataraj, Escondido Public Library, CA
School Library Journal


(Starred review.) Full of sisterhood, diversity, and complex, strong women, this book will speak to readers as they will undoubtedly find a kindred spirit in at least one of the Das women.
Booklist


[L]ushly drawn and emotionally resonant. The final third of the book, however…is less so; its plotlines…seem contrived and hastily written.… [Losing] steam and heart toward the end, the earlier chapters…make up for it (Ages 12-18).
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of Rabindranath Tagor's quote that appears before the novel begins?

2. How do attitudes toward gender differ between the various characters and between the generations?

3. What does Tara mean when she says: "She tells me I use the screen the way she uses reading and writing, but she's wrong. For her, that's escape. For me, it's research" (page 36)?

4. Why does Tara feel the need to perform and change her identity (page 37)?

5. What does Tara mean when she says that "power oozes from every American pore of her skin" when talking about Marcia Brady (page 41)?

6.  What is the cultural significance of the conversation about Tara getting new shoes on page 45-46?

7. What do Ranee's attitudes toward gender reveal about the Indian notion of gender in the 1970s as opposed to the 1970s American idea of gender?

8. How would you describe the Das family dynamic? What does it reveal about each member?

9. Why do you think Ranee is so obsessed with social status and social standing?

10. Why does Sonia burn her journal (page 75)?

11. What traditions does each character hold onto? Which traditions does each give up? What do these say about each of the characters?

12. How does Sonia's conception of freedom change throughout the novel?

13. What does Tara's fear of becoming her mother say about her age (page 147)?

14. How do Chantal's fighting grandmothers resemble her mother and aunt's struggle to reconcile the differences in their two cultures? How do they represent her own struggle with her biracial identity?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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