Book Review: Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.  This is the second book of short stories I’ve read by her and I am equally moved by them.  Unlike Interpreter of Maladies, the stories in this book describe a smaller range of experiences focusing almost entirely on Indian-Americans living in New England.  

At first I was a little disappointed by the everyday, commonplace nature of the stories but I soon realized that together the stories paint a picture.  She describes a series of people living their lives, the impact of their third culture experience only one factor influencing the way they interact with their surroundings.  

There is something about the way she is able to capture the story of each of her characters that gives me an intense, emotional connection to them.  I feel as though she is describing me in so many ways.  The impulses I have felt to fit in and to disconnect simultaneously.  The way I long to live a normal life just like everyone else, realizing that not one lives this life.  

The title of her book comes from this quote printed at the beginning.  

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil.  My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes my be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.  

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Custom-House"  

Jhumpa Lahiri seems to be a quiet woman with an ability to observe the world around her and capture it in words.  She makes me feel both inspired to write and too intimidated to try. 

For some of the few TV interviews she has done, see Charlie Rose.