The emotional nuances in this-and all of Lahiri's stories-for that matter, are so beautifully realized that they take your breath away. Over countless delicious Bengali dinners, Boudi (as Pranab respectfully calls the mom) develops a slow and lingering crush on the young student who eventually grows wings and leaves to marry an American woman. The story speaks simply yet amazingly eloquently to the intense desperation felt by the primary characters, the narrator's mother and Pranab Chakraborty-a young flamboyant newly-arrived graduate student in Cambridge, so very different from the narrator's more staid father. In her latest story collection, Unaccustomed Earth, the question occupies prime real estate in my favorite story-Hell-Heaven. Lahiri has said in interviews that her parents' arranged marriage continues to fascinate her, and that it is a question that has preoccupied her in all the books she has written. Even better, Lahiri bestows her uncanny powers of observation on her characters as well. She has always had acute powers of observation and has used them to interpret situations and processes that captivate her imagination. Jhumpa Lahiri is easily one of the best American writers of contemporary fiction.
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