Description

Thousands of miles apart from each other, two talented girls have the same dream: a university education. But is it worth it?

Publisher Review

A dazzling campus novel … as compelling as it is seamless, merrily leading readers to the cynical revelations at its core. Richard Russo meets Mohsin Hamid in this knowing tale of academia and the lives of struggling South Asians * Kirkus * A book that’s a feast, an occasion and a celebration. Randy Boyagoda delightfully skewers the industrial-academic complex but also creates moving characters who seem to have walked in from the dorm and faculty meeting next door. The result is as moving as it is hysterically funny — Gary Shteyngart, New York Times Bestselling author of Vera, or Faith Randy Boyagoda’s Lords of Serendipity is utterly fantastic and timely beyond belief. This is the campus novel we’ve all been waiting for: tender, eviscerating, perfect — Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao This is a new kind of campus novel, a wicked but humane satire that envisions a global community of strivers, charlatans, jaded bureaucrats, and ethically challenged scholars whose lives and destinies keep intersecting in unexpected places with unpredictable outcomes. Randy Boyagoda is a wry and clear-eyed guide to this three-ring academic circus of careerism, venality, and stubborn hope for a better future — Tom Perrotta A sparkling, humane, and irresistible campus novel. As Randy Boyagoda celebrates (and subverts) the comedy of college, he offers what any good education should: not a microcosm, sealed off from the world, but a wide-ranging, free-thinking inquiry into life beyond the ivory tower — Garth Risk Hallberg, author of City on Fire This clever, continent-hopping read expands the frame of the classic campus novel to include the often-invisible characters behind a university education: the parents . . . Boyagoda’s mordant satire of academia and its costs is also a touching tribute to what parents will do for their children. * Oprah Daily * Combining wicked satire with genuine hope, Lords of Serendipity takes on the financial, moral and cultural crises plaguing modern academia. * The Wall Street Journal *