Just Finished Reading

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

You may be familiar with Lahiri from her novel, The Namesake, which was made into a movie with the title starring Kal Penn (Kumar from the Harold & Kumar movies).  

This book is a collection of short stories, all featuring Bengali characters.  Each story centers around the idea of fitting in to an "unaccustomed" land.  It tells the story of assimilation, the the inability to assimilate, with characters of varying ages, and the different coping mechanisms members of the same family use.

Although I normally prefer novels to stories, I enjoyed these as each story felt like a novella.  Even in a few pages, you feel invested in the characters and their feelings.  You don't have to be an immigrant or the child of an immigrant to understand being an outsider, of straddling two worlds.  However, her stories definitely provide insight into the American-Bengali world.  In addition, she deals with issues we all may face: aging parents, alcoholism, falling in love, accepting a new step-parent, infidelity, dissonance between generations.

The first section is a series of individual vignettes, while the second section contains three stories interwoven with each other.  

I found this a quick, interesting read and would recommend it to others!