Book Review: Lion (original title A Long Way Home) by Saroo Brierly
In my view, this book has two strikes against it before I even initiate the reading, which makes it unusual that I would have picked it up at a used bookstore and read it all the way through. First of all, it is a movie tie-in edition. Instead of having the author on the cover, as in the original, it has a photo of the actor who plays the author in the film. This, to me, is a diminishment of the author’s accomplishments. I would much rather see a photo of the man who underwent all of these amazing experiences than the thespian who had pretended to do so. I also objected to the changing of the book’s name. A Long Way Home is a precise summarization of what the author went through, while Lion makes no sense in the context of the story, until we learn near the end of the book that the author’s given name of Sheru (which he had remembered as Saroo after he had got lost as a child) means Lion in Hindi.
The second strike I discovered while researching details of the book on Wikipedia: it is ghostwritten. The actual author is an Australian writer named Larry Buttrose. I have read and enjoyed ghostwritten memoirs in the past (Life by Keith Richards, for instance) but normally I avoid them. If someone feels that their life (or an aspect of their life) is important enough to write a memoir about it, I would prefer the account to be in the participant’s own words.
For A Long Way Home, though, I am willing to waive my objections to these defects – because the fact is that it tells a truly unique, absorbing, exciting, and awesome true story.
Saroo is raised in a poor neighborhood of a town in central India along with his two brothers and sister by his mother, who has been abandoned for a new wife by her Muslim husband. The family, living in abject poverty, barely manages to survive; nevertheless, the various adversities they endure keep them close as a unit. One night when five-year-old Saroo is visiting a nearby train station with his brother, he boards a train, gets locked into an empty carriage, and makes the long journey alone to Kolkata (at the time known as Calcutta). He somehow survives on the streets until he is taken in by an orphanage. Through an adoption program he is matched with new parents from Tasmania in Australia.
It takes him time to adapt to a new language and culture, of course, but Saroo manages to prosper while growing up as an Australian. When he is an adult, he initiates a search for his hometown and family through the Google Earth program. For three years he virtually follows rail lines from Calcutta’s Howrah Station westward into India’s interior until he miraculously manages to locate his former home. He travels to India, finds his birth family, and reunites with them.
It is an extraordinary story that drew much international attention when it was first made known. The movie, too, was popular and acclaimed, earning six Oscar nominations. I have traveled extensively in India and have visited Calcutta and Howrah Station on numerous occasions, and I can testify that Saroo’s story is nothing short of astonishing. For every orphaned or abandoned Indian child who finds a home either in India or abroad, there are countless others who remain lost. Despite the drawbacks I delineated at the beginning of this essay, I recommend this book. It is rare to find a true tale with such excitement and depth.
