“I used to think my father had been assigned to us by the government. This was because he appeared to serve no purpose.” Ajay, eight, is about to emigrate to America with his mother and older brother Birju. They are leaving their quiet, frugal lives in Delhi – Sunday lunch with grandparents, splitting matches with a razor to save money, bathing on the roof with a bucket and a mug – to join this previously unimpressive father in an apartment in Queens. Pointless no more, “he had brought us to America, and made us rich”.Akhil Sharma’s first novel, An Obedient Father, the story of a corrupt, sexually abusive functionary in Delhi, came out 14 years ago. An uneven, disturbing work, it won the 2001 Hemingway Award but it lacks Family Life’s powerf