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Unaccustomed Earth
by: Jhumpa Lahiri

Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780676979350
ISBN: 0676979351
Label: Vintage Canada
Manufacturer: Vintage Canada
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: April 14, 2009
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Release Date: April 14, 2009
Studio: Vintage Canada

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Knopf Canada is proud to welcome this bestselling, Pulitzer Prize—winning author with eight dazzling stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.

In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father who carefully tends her garden–where she later unearths evidence of a love affair he is keeping to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a couple’s romantic getaway weekend takes a dark turn at a party that lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a woman 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 fateful 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.

Unaccustomed Earth is rich with the author’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Jhumpa's emotional masterpiece
Jhumpa Lahiri writes about the people she knows best. Although all the stories deal with Bengali families, the incidents could be common to any Indian family living in the USA, and any non-resident Indian (NRI) can relate to them. She preys on the reader's emotions throughout the book, with a rather gut-wrenching finale to most of the stories.

Rating:

- Book of short stories - Cover to cover without a break?
It was definitely entertaining (I might have used "gripping" if it were a novel) enough to from cover to cover without a break. Even though it was about immigrant families from West Bengal (which I have never visited) living mostly on the East Coast of America (in cities and towns I have never heard of), she created a sense of association, call it connection, with the characters.

The little girl torn between two different cultures at home and at school, the teenager struggling in college and thereafter to prove herself, the accomplished professional resigning to an arranged marriage "to fix it", the expectant mom of a toddler, the parents wanting their kids to have the best of both worlds... they all hit home for this particular audience. Not sure if it would be the same outside the diaspora.

Rating:

- It was so good, it made me cry
I LOVED this book. I especially enjoyed the Hema & Kaushik triology. Lahiri's writing just seems to flow with ease, and it's a pleasure to read. I just love the way her stories unfold very carefully. I actually liked this collection of short stories even more than Interpreter of Maladies. It's the best book I've read in years.

Rating:

- Rich with detail and complexity, these short stories are novels that end too soon
As we've come to expect from Jhumpa Lahiri, this collection of eight short stories examines the immigrant experience in America, including the difficulties of adjusting to a new culture and workplace and the clashes between immigrant parents and their fully American children. Lahiri's stories, however, are not limited to immigrant issues but address global issues relevant worldwide: how we need our parents, how we develop our independence, and how we give up that independence to form lasting relationships. More than anything, these stories capture the search for a comfortable identity.

Lahiri's writing is rich with detail and complexity, making these short stories seem more like novels that end too soon. Lahiri's style is powerful. There's no sentimentality here but plenty of sensitivity and feeling. Many of these stories contain a hidden element or event of such significance that, when finally revealed ... Read More

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