"How would you like to be a cowboy?" H. N. Shantha Murthy was working in an upscale Delhi hotel when he heard these words from a wealthy Houston couple who had barely finished their check-in. Just hours later, they were at the American embassy to arrange his emigration. In the U.S., Shantha became a well-paid university graduate and suburban family man, only to be waylaid by less auspicious developments: the death of his first wife, the collapse of the Texan aerospace industry, and a string of unsuccessful business ventures. With THE GAS STATION ATTENDANT, Shantha's daughter Karla—while pondering her own circuitous route to motherhood in New York City—uses home movies and phone conversations with her father to explore how this son of middle-class Bangaloreans wound up decades later on the night shift at a Texas gas station. In the process, she illuminates both her family history and the immensurable promise of cross-generational understanding.