Nutella Banana Bread and A Great Country
Exploring the American dream, and a chocolatey, browned butter loaf
Hello and welcome to Good Book/Good Bread!
Do you ever hit a roll with reading a long string of books you love? I’ve been in one lately, and it’s glorious. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, The Hunter by Tana French, The Wedding People by Alison Espach, and the subject of this week’s newsletter, A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. This is especially nice after I had a reading slump in the summer. I kept starting critically acclaimed books, couldn’t get into them, and then felt like I was missing some intellectual streak everyone else who loved these books had. This was most acutely felt while trying to read The Idiot by Elif Batuman, a book that had me staring up at the ceiling and wondering, am I the idiot? Thankfully, my reading experiences the last few months have been much more pleasant.
I was late to the Shilpi Somaya Gowda party. Earlier this year, I read her book The Secret Daughter, which was published in 2010. You can check out a Good Book/Good Bread issue on it, plus a recipe for spiced sourdough here. She’s a beautiful writer, and I was thrilled to see her newest book, A Great Country, getting lots of attention.
Read below for my full take on A Great Country and to learn why I baked this bread to match it.
Good Book: A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
In a Nutshell
When we meet the Shah family, they have just moved to the fictional gated community of Pacific Hills, California. Parents Priya and Ashok immigrated to the US from India two decades earlier. Through flashbacks, we learn about the sacrifices and hard work that led Priya, Ashok, and their three children to become firmly entrenched in the upper middle-class. Their kids have vastly different experiences in their new neighbourhood compared to the one they grew up in. The eldest resents the affluence of the kids at her fancy new school, while the middle sister fits in immediately. The youngest, twelve-year-old Ajay, is quiet and withdrawn, fixated on robotics and building a drone. The family’s tensions and problems are all thrown into sharp focus when Ajay is arrested one night while flying his drone near an airport. A misunderstanding with police snowballs into a major problem. The incident divides and inflames the community, one the Shahs are trying hard to fit into. A Great Country explores belonging, generational conflict, and what ambition and success can ultimately cost.
A Great Country in Three Words
Refreshing, emotional, engaging
What I liked about A Great Country
Characters don’t act how you want them to
Many times while reading A Great Country, I found myself willing a character to act differently. Their choices were sometimes hard to read about. This was a great illustration of how people can act in unexpected and confusing ways when faced with stressful circumstances. What might appear to an outsider as the obvious solution doesn’t always feel so obvious to those at the centre.
Covers so many social issues
Somaya Gowda gracefully wove together a range of social issues in this story, including police violence, racism, privilege, and assimilation. The fact that this book could touch on so many of these topics while developing such a cohesive narrative is a testament to her skill.
Shows how people handle things they can’t control
One of the most interesting aspects of this book was how Somaya Gowda’s characters react in such varied ways to tumult. Once the misunderstanding with Ajay is set in motion, the fallout becomes unmanageable for the family, with each new development making them feel more helpless. Yet each family member navigated this differently, with anger, action, defiance, or silence.
Good Bread: Nutella banana bread with browned butter
Why this bread for this book?
When the Shahs move into their new neighbourhood of Pacific Hills, it represents a major step towards realizing their American dreams. The community is gated, full of lavish swimming pools, and ocean views. Living in Pacific Hills means so much to the Shah family, and its outsized importance in the story made me think of a bread I could picture cooling on a countertop in one of those sleek, suburban American homes. Banana bread fit the bill. According to King Arthur Flour, banana bread is the most searched for bread recipe online in the US. When I found a recipe on The New York Times cooking (linked here) that featured browned butter and Nutella, I had to make it. And full disclosure: I also felt burnt out and unmotivated this week, and an easy banana bread may have been all I was capable of baking.
Looking forward:
Book I’m looking forward to reading: The Paranormal Ranger by Stanley Milford Jr
Music I’m looking forward to listening to: Mahashmashana by Father John Misty,
Bread I’m looking forward to baking: Sourdough discard garlic pull-apart bread
Thank you for reading! If you liked this issue, forward along to a friend. If you hated it, please forward along to an enemy.
ps. if you’re looking for some other newsletters to enjoy, below are a few of my faves:
Your book recommendation sounds right up my alley. Thanks for sharing! And the recipe looks good too!
Have you read Behold the Dreamers? It has a similar feel.