What does it mean to be Indian in America?  How do you sustain a marriage in the face of distance and difference?  How can a poor woman in India survive?  These are the kinds of questions Lahiri tackles in her collection of short stories.

The first story, A Temporary Matter, is raw, heartbreaking and beautiful.  Shoba and Shukumar recently lost their baby.  When the power goes out, they spend more time talking than they have in months.  As the story develops, they learn more about each other and what their relationship has meant.  I was crying by the end.

The rest of the stories are lovely, too, but none is as good as the first one.  It’s an interesting editorial decision to put the best story first.  Everything else sort of felt like a let-down.  But they’re all good in their own way as well.  The stories are quiet and thoughtful and with just a few words Lahiri manages to show us the intimate and deeply personal lives of her characters.  A wonderful achievement.

This book won the Pulitzer in 2000 so I’m obviously reading it out of order.  But I was looking to read some short stories so I figured this was a good place to start.  I sometimes don’t like short stories because I feel like just as I’m getting invested in the characters the story is over.  For the most part she avoids that here.  I suppose that’s the mark of a good writer.