Article Last Updated: Saturday, April 23, 2005 - 12:16:43 AM MST

Pulitzer prize winner's novel chosen to bring community together

'The Namesake' library's choice for 'One Book' project

By MATT JAMES Of the Record staff

During its three-year run in Park City, the "One Book, One Community" project has enjoyed both qualified success and a success almost too great for the library to handle.

The project began years ago in Seattle and is designed to help bring a community together by giving it a common element, a book. With that common element, people can begin conversations and hopefully, through the shared experience of the book, find more in common than they did before.

"I think it's cool because you can see other people reading the same book, and it's a good way to break the ice," said Park City Library's adult services librarian Teresa Ferguson.

In the program's first year with Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees," Library Director Linda Tillson said the program accomplished at least one of its missions.

"We had great participation in the very first year with 'The Bean Trees' with people reading the book," she said.

However, she noted, not many people came to the discussions about the book at the end of the project.

The next year, in 2004, when the community read Jon Krakauer's non-fiction work, "Under the Banner of Heaven," participation in both the reading and the discussion increased sharply, with so many people signing up to discuss the book that the library couldn't fit everyone.

For 2005, the library is hoping for something between "The Bean Tree's" quiet reception and the controversy surrounding "Under the Banner of Heaven."

This year's One Book selection, chosen by library patrons (through a vote) from a list of four books picked by Ferguson, is "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel is Lahiri's first and follows her Pulitzer Prize winning debut, "Interpreter of Maladies," a collection of short stories.

"I think that 'The Namesake' is really good for the sense of community," said Ferguson.

She noted the parallels between the characters in the book and many Park City residents. Most Parkites originally come from somewhere else another homeland just like the characters in Lahiri's story.

The novel tells the story of a Bengali couple Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli who immigrate to the United States for husband Ashoke's doctoral schooling at MIT. With their arranged marriage and a clear memory of their homeland, they are mindful of their Bengali traditions and heritage.

Within the first few pages of the book, the Ganguli's first son is born. Ashoke calls him Gogol as a pet name, but somehow the moniker is chosen as the child's proper name, and he forever becomes Gogol, a Bengali-American boy named after a Russian writer.

The novel tells the story of Gogol's first-generation American youth and the obstacles he faces trying to forge an identity from his surroundings and his heritage, close at hand. And at the same time, Lahiri relates the difficulties his parents face as a couple living in a foreign land but still tied to many of the ways and traditions in which they were raised.

Lahiri writes with a style saturated with detail, graphically cataloging both characters' actions and surroundings, so much so that a reader actually feels, at many points, as if he or she is right there with the character, next to them, or even within the same body.

Ferguson said the thing about the book which stuck out in her mind was its scope.

"One of the things I like about the book is that it takes him from before he was born, up to when he's 30," she noted.

At the end of the project, there will be three different discussions with three different moderators. They come from a variety of backgrounds.

"I just started talking to people whom I though would have insight about the book," said Ferguson.

Dr. Benjamin Cohen, assistant professor of South Asian history at the University of Utah will lead the talk on June 4 at 3 p.m.; library board member and librarian Bobbie Pyron will preside at June 8 at 11 p.m., and library board member and local business owner Kate Doordan will facilitate June 16 at 6 p.m.

Ferguson said each moderator will have significant freedom in how he or she leads a discussion about the book.

So far, Ferguson said the response to "The Namesake" has been encouraging.

"I love how excited everyone is about it," she noted.

She said it has been checked out numerous times and she has begun to hear conversations about it in and around the library. Tillson noted that the program was growing, working towards a maximal involvement in its third year in Park City.

"I think the more years that you do the One Book program in the community, the more people know about it," Tillson said.

"The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri is available for borrowing from the Park City Library or for purchase from Dolly's Books on Main Street or the Spotted Frog Bookstore in Redstone Village. For more information about the One Book program, visit www.parkcitylibrary.org.