This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The writer's voice, we'll hear Akiel Sharma read his story,

You Are Happy, from the April 17th, 2017 issue of the magazine.

Sharma is the author of two novels,

An Obedient Father and Family Life,

for which he won the International Dublin Literary Award in 2016.

His first story collection,

A Life of Adventure and Delight,

will be published in July.

Now here's Akil Sharma.

You are happy? Break her arms, break her legs,

Lachshman's grandmother would say about her daughter-in-law.

Then see how she crawls to her bottle.

What she said made sense.

Lachman's father refused to beat his wife, though.

This is America, he said, I will go to jail, and you will be sitting in India, eating warm pecoras. To Lakshma, it seemed unmanly of his father not to take charge. It happened every time the family went to a party. Before they left the house, his father would wipe down his comb. He would tuck a handkerchief into his pants pocket.

He would get out the notebook in which he had written down the lyrics of movie songs,

because he liked to sing and hope that somebody would ask him to. The parties were segregated.

There was the kitchen where the women gathered, and there was the living room where the men

stood and talked about politics, investments.

Lakshman's mother was 32, short, stocky, curly-haired. She would stir up trouble.

...