An interesting debut story collection. Loved the title story. Injam has a sharp eye for uniquely aberrant particularities and universally human foibles. He makes us question how and what we choose to remember about our worlds.

In a Nutshell: An anthology focussing on India, Indians, and Indianness here and abroad. Beautiful prose and great characterisation, but somewhat abrupt endings due to the slice-of-life approach. Your reaction to the endings will decide if your experience is the best possible one.

This collection of eleven stories is quintessentially Indian, though its settings are spread across India and the USA. Even the stories that are based within India cover a variety of regions. As such, each tale comes with its own unique appeal.

The stories herein are written in the slice-of-life style, which is going to be the make-or-break factor for your experience of this collection. I am not too fond of this style, though if it is written well, I can *like* the story while not loving it. So my experience was unfortunately not “the best possible experience”, but that shouldn’t take away from the book as it was my shortcoming that made my experience relatively lacklustre.

After a long time have I seen such lush prose in an anthology. The writing creates a vivid picture of the scene and captures the pulse of the characters, portraying even difficult feelings such as melancholy and hiraeth without going over the top. The stories have a genuineness to them, and capture the Indian spirit excellently. There’s a sense of pathos underlying each tale, even in the happy moments, though these are quite minimal. At the same time, the book doesn’t become too maudlin. While most of the stories were dramatic in style, the first one was from the speculative fiction genre. Ironically, this is the one I loved best.

To be honest, I don’t prefer reading works by Indian-origin authors who now reside in the USA, because most of them peddle Indian stereotypes to unsuspecting Western readers. Not this book though. The portrayal of India is as authentic as possible, capturing the positives and the negatives of the country in a realistic way. This is the highest compliment I can pay to any book by an Indian diaspora writer.

There are a few Indian words in the stories but no glossary. This wasn’t a problem for me as all the words were familiar to me. But as this book is being readied for a release in the USA, a glossary might help.

There is no foreword by the author explaining his intent behind and theme for this collection, which disappointed me. (I love reading forewords in anthologies to get an idea of the author’s aim for the collection.)

The author’s writing reminded me of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, which is also a similarly-themed anthology having a dual focus on the Indian diaspora in the USA and on contemporary residents of urban and rural India. However, unlike Jhumpa Lahiri’s more traditional plot structure, the endings in Nishanth Injam’s collection were somewhat abrupt due to the slice-of-life approach. Hence, many stories here would have rated higher for me had they offered closure. But most endings left wanting more.

As always, I rated the stories individually. But this time, I can’t really capture my feelings through the ratings because I don’t know how to rate a 4.5 star story with a 2 or 3 star ending. As such, instead of opting for the average of my ratings as usual, I am going with my general sense of satisfaction from the book, which is “I liked it quite a lot”. FWIW, I enjoyed ‘The Bus’, The Immigrant’, ‘Summers of Waiting’, ‘Lunch at Paddy’s’, ‘The Protocol’, and the title story – all of which would have been 4.5 star works had they provided me more satisfying endings.

If you enjoy this writing style and anthologies in general, this is a fabulous collection to try.

3.5 stars, rounding up because the book might work better for slice-of-life lovers, which I am not.


My thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Best Possible Experience”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

When I requested this book, I didn't notice that it was a collection of short stories. I thought Injam did a wonderful job of capturing many different aspects of the immigrant experience. I could find no flaw with his writing, and value his many insights into the experience of being an immigrant. Ultimately, I felt underwhelmed by this book, but I don't tend to enjoy short stories very much, so please consider that when reading this review.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Injaam captures the heartache of immigration without sappiness and includes ample doses of dark humor. In the story “Summers of Waiting,” a granddaughter returns to India from Chicago to care for her elderly grandfather, whose life is ravaged by guilt. In “The Protocol,” an Indian immigrant and a down-on-her-luck Black woman agree to marry to get a green card in exchange for money. Humor abounds as well: All hell breaks loose when 12-year-old Vikas invites his classmate over for lunch, completely befuddling his poor parents. Filled with sharp humor and unafraid of humanity’s dark underbelly, this is a promising debut.

Solid stories, and a nice variety. This author draws interesting characters, and these stories are well crafted. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free copy for review!!

I absolutely adored this collection of short stories! I wish I could include quotes in this review, but it's still an ARC at the moment, so I'll have to forgo them. But I need a physical copy of this book- when it comes out I'll be one of the first in line. If you've ever experienced dysfunction in your family or any kind of estrangement, this is the one for you. There's also ironic humor embedded in many of the stories- so it's not all sadness 😅

This collection gave me 3 things:

(1) coming-of-age vibes (loss of innocence, self-discovery, reckoning with family drama/trauma),
(2) confirmation of the stress of not-knowing (either cultural ignorance or from living in poverty),
(3) and good ole mystery/suspense!!

My favorite stories were (almost all of them):
- The Bus
- Come With Me
- The Immigrant
- Summers of Waiting
- Lunch at Paddy's
- The Protocol
- The Math of Living
- Best Possible Experience

I felt so connected with the stories and characters. Nishanth Injam paints an achingly honest picture of what it's like to struggle with family but also with oneself. Highly recommend this collection, and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the amazing publisher for the ARC of this title! I am so grateful to be auto-approved for this title!
I look forward to reading and reviewing. More to come!

Strange, wonderful, unsparing stories about Indians and Indian immigrants from an extremely talented new voice. Loved the first piece (and interestingly, the only speculative piece), "The Bus," especially. The plotting is a little predictable / sometimes melodramatic (a fiance's parents threaten to drink pesticide and a father dies within the span of 20 minutes?), but the voice is confident and these stories are lovely and moving portrayals of the psyches of Indians and Indian immigrants. I'll be following this writer.

An eclectic debut collection of short stories. An author to watch in future.

Some stories deal with the immigrant experience. One deals with paranormal. All elegantly told. A quick read overall. Loved the prose that is approachable without going over the top (something you normally see with authors of this genre)