A man has been found slumped over the steering wheel of his BMW, dead, in a South Asian enclave of suburban New Jersey—and the Sharmas are at the center of the case. In Men Like Ours, the darkly comic debut novel by Writing alum Bindu Bansinath '23, coming-of-age meets murder mystery as Anita Sharma, her restless teenage daughter Leila, and the women of the neighborhood are roped into the investigation of their friend's death.
Dwight Garner of The New York Times called Bansinath "a genuine and offbeat talent," comparing her vivid descriptions of the dirty undersides of domestic life to the likes of Ottessa Moshfegh and Tony Tulathimutte. "She's a great noticer," he said, "even if the thing noticed is merely the glory of, let's say, a turkey hoagie from Wawa."
Garner also emphasized Bansinath's searingly honest depiction of New Jersey's Little India, which celebrates the close-knit and tenacious community of the novel's setting without shying away from nitty-gritty details: the suburb's dullness, the characters' bodily functions, or the gendered and classed neighborhood dynamics. Bansinath's visceral prose serves to illuminate the complexity of the people we believe to be family—their capacity to harm and propensity to save one another.
Bansinath is a senior writer at New York magazine's The Cut, where she covers everything from crime and class to news, culture and relationships. She previously worked as an assistant editor at Harper's and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Electric Literature, among others. Her 2025 New York magazine article, "The Nanny Squatter," is currently being adapted into an Apple TV series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cecily Strong, directed by Mary Bronstein. She lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Professor Gary Shteyngart and New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends called the novel "the most promising debut [he's] read in decades." Men Like Ours is available now, in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook, from Bloomsbury, online retailers, and local bookstores.
