I recently conducted a book review of Lahiri's short story collections, Unaccustomed Earth and Interpreter of Maladies. No one captures the anguish of the human condition than Lahiri. Her work certainly encompasses the struggle of Indian immigrants in America who try to hold on to their own culture while blending into their adopted American one. The problem is compounded if you throw in a few kids who are raised in America with it's seemingly limitless social freedoms, but whose parents want them to respect the more reserved, old-fashioned Indian way.
However, a deeper theme runs through her stories: the basic condition of a lack of human understanding. In "A Temporary Matter" a couple drifts apart after their infant is stillborn; their shared grief is a wedge between them. In the title story in Unaccustomed Earth, a story told from both the daughter's and father's point of view, Ruma struggles with whether to ask her father to live with her family after her mother's death while the father keeps his new relationship a secret from his daughter.
Told with elegance and simplicity, Lahiri opens up the human soul to us. I do not feel sad after reading these stories, but resigned to the fact that as humans we will always (usually) misunderstand each other and wonder, do we ever really connect?
(.Unaccustomed Earth is one of my Notable Books Challenge selections
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