One of my favorite authors, Jhumpa Lahiri, writes of the immigrant experience from Indian couples as they forge livelihoods and new generations in America. It straddles the gap between parents with traditional customs and their children with “new world” lifestyles, and what happens when the two live under one American roof. Religion, relationships, food, ritual and family dynamics all interplay remarkably, manifesting questions of identity, race and culture. Parents grapple with the informal habits of their children, and the children struggle with the staid customs of their parents, along with the expectation to marry appropriately into the right racial class system.
I talk about books all the time, and sometimes get clouded by the idea that everyone has heard of authors like Lahiri, who won a Pulitzer for Interpreter of Maladies out of the literary gate. So for everyone who hasn’t heard, she’s on another level.
