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The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri

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Table of Contents

At-a-Glance (/literature/n/the-namesake/at-a-glance)
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Book Summary (/literature/n/the-namesake/book-summary) Subjects

Character List (/literature/n/the-namesake/character-list)

Character Map (/literature/n/the-namesake/character-map)

Summary and Analysis (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-1)

Chapter 1 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-1)

Chapter 2 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-2)

Chapter 3 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-3)

Chapter 4 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-4)

Chapter 5 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-5)

Chapter 6 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-6)

Chapter 7 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-7)

Chapter 8 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8)

Chapter 9 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-9)

Chapter 10 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10)

Chapter 11 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-11)

Chapter 12 (/literature/n/the-namesake/summary-and-analysis/chapter-12)

Critical Essays (/literature/n/the-namesake/critical-essays/novel-versus-film-adaptation)

Novel “Versus” Film Adaptation (/literature/n/the-namesake/critical-essays/novel-versus-film-

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 adaptation)

Study Help (/literature/n/the-namesake/study-help/quiz)

Quiz (/literature/n/the-namesake/study-help/quiz)

Cite this Literature Note (/literature/n/the-namesake/at-a-glance?citation=true)

Book Summary
The Namesake covers five primary periods in the life of the Ganguli family:

1. From India to America

Chapters 1 and 2 narrate the story of the Gangulis’ early days in America. Ashoke
decided to move to Boston and begin graduate school after barely surviving a
catastrophic train accident in India. A few years later, his parents and Ashima’s
parents arranged their marriage, and Ashima left Calcutta to join Ashoke in Boston.
As the novel begins, the two of them are going to a Boston hospital because Ashima is
in labor with their first child.

Ashima’s grandmother has sent a letter from India indicating what the child’s name
should be, but her letter is lost in the mail. Because their newborn son needs a name
on his birth certificate in order to be released from the hospital, the Gangulis decide
to give him the pet name “Gogol,” after the Russian author whose short stories Ashoke
was reading when his life nearly ended on the train. Although they plan to give Gogol
a formal name to put on his passport before their trip to Calcutta, Ashima’s father’s
sudden death forces them to leave for Calcutta in a rush, and the name “Gogol” is put
on his passport.

2. Gogol’s Childhood

In Chapters 3 and 4, Gogol grows up as a Bengali American child with a name that is
neither Bengali nor American. Although his parents decide to give him the formal
Bengali name “Nikhil” when he begins kindergarten, Gogol refuses to respond to the
name so his school teachers call him by his legal name, “Gogol.” Gogol’s younger sister
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 is born, a girl named Sonali and called “Sonia.” Although Ashoke and Ashima try to
raise their children according to Bengali cultural practices, they often find themselves
competing with Gogol and Sonia’s desires to live like their American friends.

One of the Gangulis’ Bengali customs is hosting house parties for all of their Bengali
American friends. Gogol’s fourteenth birthday is such a party, and he meets a shy girl
his own age named Moushumi, who becomes his wife years later. During Gogol’s
tenth grade year, the Ganguli family travels to India for eight months; Gogol and Sonia
feel out of place and can’t wait to return to America. During Gogol’s senior year in
high school, he pretends to be a college student and kisses a college girl at a party; just
before the kiss, he tells her that his name is “Nikhil.”

3. Nikhil the American

Gogol’s identity change to “Nikhil” becomes official in Chapters 5 and 6. Deciding that
he wants to begin college as “Nikhil,” Gogol legally changes his name before starting
his undergraduate study at Yale University. He tries to keep his past completely
separate from his new life and persona in college; no one from Yale knows that his
legal name was once “Gogol.” Gogol dates a fellow Yale student named Ruth, but they
break up before the end of college. Gogol takes regular trips home to visit his family in
Boston, and on one of these trips Ashoke tells Gogol the story of the train crash that
influenced his choice of Gogol’s name.

After college, Gogol completes a graduate degree at Columbia University and works
as an architect in New York City. There, he begins dating a woman named Maxine
Ratliff. Although he meets her parents on their very first date, he doesn’t want to
bring her to meet his parents. His relationship with Maxine progresses to the point
where he moves in with the Ratliffs. When Ashoke accepts a nine-month research
appointment in Ohio, Ashima persuades Gogol to visit before his father leaves, and
Gogol and Maxine stop by to have lunch with his parents on their way to New
Hampshire for a vacation with Maxine’s parents.

4. Ashoke’s Death, Gogol’s Marriage

In Chapters 7–9, Ashoke’s sudden death transforms Gogol’s world. Ashoke calls his
wife from Ohio to tell her he has checked himself into the emergency room with a
stomachache, and a few hours later he dies of a heart attack. Gogol travels to Ohio to
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 collect his father’s remains and empty his apartment, then he returns to Boston to
grieve with his family. Maxine is sympathetic about Ashoke’s death, but she doesn’t
understand why Gogol grieves with his family for so long and why he refuses to
include her in the family’s mourning. They break up.

A year later, after a brief affair with a married woman named Bridget, Gogol begins
dating Moushumi, a fellow Bengali American. Moushumi recently broke off her
engagement with a non-Bengali named Graham, and Gogol and Moushumi are eager
to be with someone who understands Bengali culture. To their parents’ delight, they
fall in love and marry. However, their marriage quickly becomes strained for several
reasons. First, Moushumi decides not to change her last name to Ganguli. Second,
during the trip they take to Paris together, Moushumi expresses her longing to live
there, but Gogol feels out of place the entire time. Third, at a dinner party, Moushumi
tells her friends about Gogol’s name change, and Gogol feels that she has betrayed his
trust.

5. Failure and Future Hope

After turning down a dissertation fellowship in Paris, Moushumi begins feeling stifled
by her relationship with Gogol. By chance, she finds the contact information of her old
friend Dmitri, whom she had fallen in love with in high school. They begin having an
affair. Guilt racks Moushumi. Gogol suspects nothing, not even when he sees his wife
packing a bathing suit for a weekend “conference” that is actually a romantic getaway
with Dmitri. It isn’t until Moushumi accidentally speaks Dmitri’s name to Gogol and
immediately looks guilty that he guesses the truth. They divorce.

A year after the divorce, Ashima hosts one last Christmas party at the Ganguli house
on Pemberton Road. Ashima has decided to sell the house and spend six months of
each year living in Calcutta, the other six months living in America. Gogol returns
home for the party and finds a copy of The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol, an earlier
gift from his father. He begins to read it.

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