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Chapters
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Contents
Chapters
Chapters at a glance
The Namesake has 12 chapters.
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Chapters12 items
Chapter 1
Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli arrive in America as a young married couple. Ashima is heavily pregnant and deeply homesick, trying to recreate familiar tastes in an unfamiliar Boston a…
Chapter 2
The Ganguli family settles into suburban Massachusetts. Gogol grows up between two worlds: the Bengali customs his parents maintain at home and the American life he navigates at s…
Chapter 3
Gogol is now a teenager. The family takes a trip to India, Gogol's first, and he finds himself alienated there too.
Chapter 4
Gogol leaves for Yale. Before he goes, he legally changes his name to Nikhil.
Chapter 5
Gogol, now going by Nikhil professionally, graduates and moves to New York to work as an architect. He meets Maxine Ratliff at a party and begins a relationship with her.
Chapter 6
Gogol is now in college at Yale and has legally changed his name to Nikhil. The name change feels like freedom at first, but the novel shows how the new name creates distance rath…
Chapter 7
Gogol graduates from Yale, moves to New York, and works as an architect. He enters a relationship with Maxine Ratliff, a confident American woman whose family represents everythin…
Chapter 8
In the aftermath of Ashoke's death, Gogol grows closer to Moushumi Mazumdar, a Bengali-American woman his mother introduces him to.
Chapter 9
Moushumi begins an affair with Dimitri Desjardins, a man she knew before her marriage. The affair is not passionate rebellion so much as a slow drift back toward the self she had…
Chapter 10
The novel moves toward its close. Ashima decides to sell the family house in Massachusetts and split her time between the United States and Calcutta.
Chapter 11
Gogol, now going by Nikhil professionally and personally, is living in New York and working as an architect. His relationship with Maxine has ended, and he is still processing his…
Chapter 12
This chapter is the novel's final section and takes place at a party Ashima hosts before leaving the house for good. The extended Ganguli circle gathers one last time.
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