A novel in two editions: US, India

A California Story  |  Love and Loathing in Silicon Valley

The year is 2003. Ved, a 36-year-old Indian in Silicon Valley, works for Omnicon, the world’s largest computer networking company whose culture he finds both sad and comical. Its quietly brewing troubles soon engulf him, even as he must deal with the turmoil in his relationships with Sasha, a Russian escort, and Liz, a spiritual-liberal American he met online. Amid all this, his parents visit him from India. On a weekend outing with them, a man assaults him in a hate crime. Spiraling events force Ved into a hard reckoning with his life. A California Story is a keenly perceptive portrait of Silicon Valley and the quest for love and belonging.

About the author | Read excerpt 1, excerpt 2, the first twenty pages

USA Edition: Adelaide Books | Sep 2019 | 226 pp | Kindle | Other E-books

India Edition: Speaking Tiger | Sep 2019 | 240 pp | Kindle | Full cover and blurb


Buy in the USA: Publisher | Amazon | B&N | Apple | Kobo | Bookshops

Buy in India: Publisher | Amazon | Flipkart | Bookshops

Buy worldwide: ST | AB | Amazon UK, CA, AU, FR, DE, IT, ES, JP

 

Reader Reviews:  Amazon US  |  Amazon India  |  Goodreads  |  Shunya


 

Advance Praise and Editorial Reviews


“Namit Arora writes with an enviable briskness and ease, and produces an engaging, incisive portrait of the Indian techie in Silicon Valley. A California Story describes immigrant life with empathy but without pulling any punches. Arora’s California is a space of innovation and discovery, but also challenge and alienation. Readers will be amused, saddened, angered and educated as they read this rigorously unsanitized version of the desi dream.”

        —Suvir Kaul, AM Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania


“Namit Arora does for Silicon Valley what Tom Wolfe did for Wall Street in The Bonfire of the Vanities: with keen eye and sharp wit, he captures the culture and mores of the place. But Arora is funnier. And sweeter. Rare for a work of fiction, it reveals what has gone so horrifically awry in America and what is still worth preserving. Above all, read it for the sheer pleasure of the story, told in assured and sparkling prose.”

        —S. Abbas Raza, Founding Editor, 3 Quarks Daily


“Arora’s narrative is structurally sound and capably written with a protagonist who is endearing ... A cleverly written tale with a social conscience featuring themes of family, inclusiveness, racial divides, and the theatrics of love.”

        —Kirkus Reviews (PDF)


“[A] page-turner … about one person’s honest examination of his experience at a particular time in his life. A simple premise but it takes a lot of skill to execute simplicity: to be sparing and uncomplicated with words, yet keep it engrossing. Namit Arora is well known … for his beautifully composed and well researched essays; his debut novel suggests he is equally adept at fiction.”

        —Hari Balasubramanian, 3QD


 


“Namit Arora takes the lid off life in the Great Indian Dream of Silicon Valley.”

        —Jerry Pinto, novelist


“A moving and insightful portrayal of the immigrant's exile from authenticity. Written in the language of human relationships, Arora's novel will speak to anyone who's been a stranger in a strange land.”

        —Anil Menon, novelist and editor


“A fiercely honest and insightful story, with richly painted characters I could empathize with readily. The female characters are strong and the author gets into their minds in a way that is refreshing and illuminating.”

        —Cherry Mosteshar, author and journalist


“Change does come to Ved's life in the end and in a cataclysmic way – perhaps the only way such profound change could come … not all of us have been as lucky – we were not hurtled out of our dubious comfort zone and forced to reckon with what our real purpose in life was. A wonderful, intelligent and unvarnished traverse through the life of an immigrant in America.”

         —Heartcrossings Blog (PDF)


“In this richly detailed look at San Francisco, immigrant families, relationships, and the often soul-less tech world, Arora helps us take a new look at this Valley that has produced challenges to finding a meaningful life.”

        —Kathleen Gonzalez, author and teacher


 

Namit Arora chose a life of reading and writing after cutting short his career in the Internet industry. Raised in the Hindi Belt, he lived in Louisiana, the San Francisco Bay Area, Western Europe, and travelled in scores of countries before returning to India over two decades later in 2013. He is the author of three books: (1) Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization, (2) The Lottery of Birth: On Inherited Social Inequalities, and (3) the novel A California Story (US) / Love and Loathing in Silicon Valley (India). For more about him, visit shunya.net.