DESI 2.0

A second-generation immigrant chronicles a long and circuitous path to love and contentment in this memoir.

Garg has a high-flyer’s résumé that includes degrees from the University of Chicago and Harvard in addition to tenures as a White House fellow, an Aspen Institute Henry Crown fellow, and senior executive at Exelon. His parents, who emigrated from India, encouraged him and his siblings to be the best and achieve the most, but only via professional paths they deemed lucrative and boast-worthy. For years, Garg pursued the prescribed degrees, positions, and networking opportunities. When an undergraduate professor encouraged him to work at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, he inspired the author to integrate his personal and professional selves, an evolution that slowly improved his daily life and helped him to realize that his parents were trapped in a cycle of coldness and cruelty that would never improve. The book’s first half reads like a recitation of accomplishments; the second half is far more complex and rewarding. The narrative might have functioned more effectively if Garg had threaded scenes throughout showing his parents in action. Still, his memoir is honest and vulnerable, both when the author is recounting times of crisis—like a full-blown seizure brought on by too much stress and caffeine—and when he’s offering confessions of poor parenting and even worse management. Garg bracingly writes that his inner “Achievement Addict” will never be satisfied—he now works to tamp down this driving force, recognizing that prioritizing “chosen family over biological family was the final liberation from the programming of Desi 1.0. It was the moment [he] stopped trying to earn love and started simply receiving and giving it.”

While uneven in tone and pacing, this memoir delivers an authentic message about personal evolution.