The lure of the American dream was felt far beyond its own shores during the 20th century. In Akhil Sharma's remarkable second novel, Family Life, which opens in 1978, Mrs Mishra is treated with prickly jealousy by her Delhi neighbours after her husband, having settled in New York, sends them plane tickets. Their youngest son, Ajay, cannot stop talking about the land of "jet packs and chewing gum". When they join Mr Mishra at his apartment, with elevators and hot water on tap, America initially lives up to its mythic glamour.Yet after the eldest brother, Birju, smashes his head while diving into a swimming pool, any prospect of prosperity, liberty or happiness seems to be snuffed out. Forced to accept a shabby litigation settlement, they struggle to care for their brain-damaged son at home. Mrs Mishra, drawn to quack cures, lashes out bitterly at her heavy-drinking husband. Neglected by his parents, Ajay is dubbed a freak by his white schoolmates for making up lies that glorify his brother's pre-accident talents. There is no escaping the desperate fact that Birju will never get better.How Ajay handles this tragedy brings sparkle back into this finely balanced narrative. Daydreaming, he chats with God, who gives him laconic advice while dressed like Clark Kent. After acquiring a taste for Hemingway, Ajay emulates his tough, detached brevity in his own short stories, which probe what happened to his family with a few artful concealments. Because Family Life is largely autobiographical, that same impeccable control also gives Sharma's novel its cool, touchable surface, despite the molten grief below.Although this is a compact novel by any standards, Sharma unearths a plethora of shrewd and moving truths about the nuclear family, particularly its propensity to emotional violence. It is sheer relief when lonely Ajay's habit of whispering "I love you" to girls at school improbably yields a sweet, understanding first girlfriend. Upon Birju's homecoming, local South Asians flock round to mop the floors and festoon the house with flowers. Perhaps, as this novel intimates, only other people can supply an effective palliative for the ailments of family life. Family Life is published by Faber and Faber R180..