Unaccustomed Earth

I liked the book, in parts. Detailed review would be later. Here, in the meanwhile what Abhijit thinks:

Like in her first novel, I liked the title story the best. It is about the daughter coping with the death of her mother as she stumbles upon evidence of her father’s romantic interest in another lady. The beauty of the prose lies in being able to capture how the two different world views lead to an awkwardness in the relationship. Another story I loved in this collection was the one called Heaven and Hell. That is the story of a Bengali wife’s attraction to another immigrant Bengali man only to fall out of favor for marrying a white American lady. A story that will remind you of Satyajit Ray’s film Charulata which remains one of my all time favorites in cinema.

The stories are all about upper middle class Bengali couples and their children who have grown up in the adopted land. The subtle insights into that world are charming. For instance the struggle of parents whose son drops out of an Ivy League college and becomes an alcoholic reflects the Bengali immigrants’ view that education helps a person to climb social rungs in the adopted home.

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