Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, author of
The Namesake. The theme that ties all the stories together is how immigrant children who are sons and daughters of Indian parents struggle to break free of their parental ties and traditions, but yet find life without them untethered and unsettling. The title story finds a young woman, Ruma, pregnant with her second child while her newly-widowed father comes to visit. While she struggles with grief over her mother's death, he keeps the secret of his new relationship from her. A set of stories revolve around Hema and Kaushik, whose lives continually intersect from childhood through the adult lives, yet neither seems to find the home they crave.
Unaccustomed Earth has received glowing reviews with the San Francisco Chronicle saying, "It's early to be proclaiming a best book of the year, but Jhumpa Lahiri's gorgeous new collection of eight stories,
Unaccustomed Earth, will be hard to top."
