Summer Unfolds

I couldn’t wait to get home from work, put on shorts and a tank top, grab a coke from the fridge and my book, Unaccustomed Earth. I took them outside to sit on the deck in the hot sun. You have to take advantage of the weather when it is acting like summer.

I was prompted to pick up this book after listening to Vicki Gabereau interview the award winning author, Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri writes about first and second generation Bengali families -immigrants to the United States coming to terms with their adopted culture.

I was a bit taken aback, after reading the first long chapter, to find the book wasn’t a novel but a collection of short stories. I had become so completely immersed in the characters of that first story I had just wanted it to go on and on. However, the rest of the stories were just as mesmerizing.

I find it amusing that the Bengali characters were always lighting cigarettes, or openly displaying bottles of scotch on their dinner tables. It was almost as if they had to do this to prove how Western and sophisticated they had become.

The stories are not so much about being Bengali and trying to become American so much as they are about dealing with things we all have to face, loneliness, family relationships and rebelling against parental expectations.

The central theme of the book is love. Love of parents, Love of children, love of ones spouse and how intricate and twisted love becomes when trying to find a balance between marrying for love or settling for an arranged marriage.

Each story is rich and satisfying, told with precision and detail as each characters life is tenderly unfolded and exposed.

I will now have to seek out a Jhumpa Lahiri's first collection of short stories, Interpreter Of Maladies and her novel, The Namesake. Both books have won many awards.