A Long Way Home

Genre: Non-Fiction

I gave this book ****

This is the true story of Saroo Brierley’s childhood and his search for his family. As a five-year-old boy, Saroo lives in India with his mother, Kamla, big brothers Guddu and Kallu, and little sister, Shekilah. The family is so very poor that they often go without food. Saroo’s older brothers (only a few years older than him) spend their time begging at the nearby train station and doing odd jobs to earn money for food. None of the kids are in school as that it an expense they cannot afford. Kamla, a single mother, who is uneducated herself and works in construction, is often gone for work for a couple of days at a time, leaving Saroo to care for his little sister. One day he goes with his brother Guddu to the train station to beg for money and when Guddu tells him to wait until he returns, five-year-old Saroo wakes from his nap at the train station and climbs into a train looking for his brother. The train leaves the station with Saroo alone as it travels to its destination. Once he arrives, his search for his town, his home and his family begins in earnest. As a child, he remembers all the details of his ordeal, but mostly how much he loves and misses his mother and siblings. It is this love that propels him to try and find his Indian family.

This is absolutely not a book I would choose to read on my own because, as I’m sure others also feel, once I had children, stories about children in peril became magnified in intensity as I picture my own children in these horrific situations. But, I read this one for a book group and I’m glad I did. When I first began reading this book I thought that there’s something so refreshing about reading a book by an author who doesn’t think of himself as a writer (although he can clearly write well) but just wants to tell his story. His story was direct, detailed and concise. He told us what had happened but also his fears and thoughts. I was so very disappointed that after Saroo attends college, the writing becomes repetitive, redundant and drags on unnecessarily. It felt as though the publisher said, “Give me 300 pages”, and the author was trying to fill the space. I later read that the book was co-written by Saroo and a ghost writer. Could it be that the beginning was written by Saroo and the middle and end were written by the ghost writer? Vice versa? I’m not sure. Nonetheless, this story is so very profoundly moving. It is inconceivable to me to think that a five-year-old could walk this earth on his own with very little help and yet, it is the help of the few adults that Saroo does encounter that ultimately lands him in a safe environment where he thrives. It really does take one person, one encounter, one attempt to help. To me, what is most powerful about this story is that it is Saroo’s abject poverty and hunger that both put him in the position of being hopelessly lost and what ultimately saved him. It is his knowledge of the street and life without that enabled him to trust his own instincts about who and what was safe. This makes me think that everything we need to cope with in life is really inside us and if we take the time to listen to our own voices, we’ll hear the answers. This is a true testament to perseverance and the human spirit.