2 weeks ago……….my greedy self was rummaging through a friends bookshelf when she gave me the latest Jhumpa Lahiri(Pulitzer Prize-winning author) book. Having holidays and having ample time on my hands, I sat down to read this wonderful piece of literature.And I must say that I recommend it to each one of you (whether or not you have ample time on your hands)
Unaccustomed Earth is a deeply sad book. I would not advise reading the strong stories too quickly; they will each haunt you for days afterward. The book consists of eight stories — longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written. The book takes us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as the stories enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.
In the captivating title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself.
In A Choice of Accommodations, a husband’s attempt to turn an old flame’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night.
In Only Goodness, a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family.
And in Hema and Kaushik, a trio of linked stories — a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate — we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Each of Lahiri’s stories is a powerful tale that pulls us in, mesmerizes us while we’re there, and releases us with the knowledge that we’ve just experienced a small masterpiece. The stories…are both memorable and unpredictable.
