This is a collections of short stories unified by a common thread--they concern immigrants from India who come to America and immigrants and the children of immigrants who return to their homeland. But the stories are really about feeling like a foreigner, even in your own country; about yearning to find acceptance, dignity, and love in a world where you don't feel that you quite fit in. And haven't we all felt that way at one time or another.
Lahiri's writing is smooth and elegant, with some wonderful pieces of description: "...the only thing that appeared three-dimensional about Boori Ma was her voice: brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut." She is able to convey the emotional impact of random happenings and brief relationships, as well as the leap of understanding necessary in marriage.
I enjoyed this book very much, and I will read it again, if only to observe and analyze her skill. Since it won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1999, I am obviously not the only one who thinks it is very good.
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