Unaccustomed Earth

"Everyone has their secrets. In her stunning new collection of stories, Jhumpa Lahiri gently lifts the veil to reveal how even the most ordinary lives have their dramas and tragedies and then, as gently, lets it fall back down again. A middle aged man discovers that the death of his wife opens up his world in unexpected ways— his daughter worries that she will now have to look after him but finds that the tables have, in fact, turned; a housewife falls in love with a younger family friend—her child ascertains her secret many years on; a son is revulsed by his father’s second marriage to a young woman who has none of the sophistication and elegance of his mother; a sister tries to save her brother from alcoholism and finds herself rejecting him like everyone else. A young man and woman whose lives cross over the years, finally and fatedly fall in love. Unaccustomed Earth returns to the terrain—the heart of family life and the immigrant experience— that Jhumpa Lahiri has made utterly hers, but her themes, this time around, have darkened and deepened. Poised, nuanced, deeply moving, here is a superb collection: the finest she has written yet.