Jhumpa Lahiri's first short story collection, INTERPRETER OF
MALADIES, won the Pulitzer Prize. Her debut novel, THE NAMESAKE,
was an international bestseller and, in 2007, was made into a
critically praised feature film. Where does this accomplished
author go from here?

As her new short story collection, UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, proves,
Lahiri's fiction just gets better and better. These eight long,
deftly developed stories probe the overarching themes and subjects
of her career --- the adjustments made by Bengali immigrants as
they attempt to adapt to American culture, the differentiation
between "home" and "roots," the ways in which our visions of
ourselves are composed both of heritage and new experiences.

The title of the collection comes from a quote by Nathaniel
Hawthorne's THE CUSTOMS HOUSE, which serves as the book's epigraph:
"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 may be within my control, shall strike their
roots into unaccustomed earth." This idea --- of new generations
taking root in new soil --- runs through all the stories
here.

Lahiri's epigraph is not the only debt she owes to Hawthorne and
other classic short-story writers like him. Although her concerns
might be modern, Lahiri's mode of storytelling is distinctly
old-fashioned, hearkening back to writers like Hawthorne himself,
as well as Hardy, Chekhov and Hemingway. Her stories, unlike those
of many of the (at times) self-indulgent post-modern story
practitioners working today, unfold slowly, gradually, into
miniature works of great beauty and profundity. There's nothing
flashy here --- no gimmicks, no snarky humor --- just
near-impeccable storytelling driven by memorable characters and
situations.

In the title story, a woman who has recently moved to Seattle with
her American husband and their young son anxiously awaits the
arrival of her widowed father, making the first visit since his
wife's death. Ruma fears that, in accordance with Bengali custom,
her father will expect to move in with the young family. But he has
a secret of his own, one that will shape not only their short visit
together but also their impressions of one another.

In "Only Goodness," Sudha always looked out for her younger brother
Rahul, determined to give him the kind of traditional American
childhood she never had, since her parents were too busy adapting
to a new country to give her the trappings of childhood indulgence.
But when Rahul, now a young man, disappoints his family repeatedly
and slips into self-destructive alcoholism, Sudha must decide for
herself where to set limits on her allowances for her
brother.

Probably the most emotionally wrenching of the stories is the story
arc "Hema and Kaushik," a set of three loosely intertwined short
stories that follow two children of Bengali immigrants from
adolescence to adulthood. Like a good novel, these tales manage to
invest readers deeply in their characters, both of whom, like many
of Lahiri's characters, find it hard to interpret the true meaning
of "home." Those who have shared Hema and Kaushik's decades-long
journey will be deeply moved by the final story's closing
paragraphs, as both characters encounter very different sorts of
tragedies.

Many readers who loved THE NAMESAKE may be reluctant to pick up a
collection of short stories, a genre that has gained an unfortunate
reputation for inaccessibility and opaqueness. To miss out on this
collection, though, would be to overlook not only the best work of
Lahiri's stellar career to date but also one of the finest works of
fiction published so far this year.