Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri
Paperback
(Vintage Books / Random House, March 15, 2009)
From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand. In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But heâs harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair heâs keeping all to himself. In âA Choice of Accommodations,â a husbandâs attempt to turn an old friendâs wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In âOnly Goodness,â a sister 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 âHema and Kaushik,â a trio of linked storiesâa luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fateâwe follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one 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.