Jhumpa Lahiri, Part 2

I just finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and hope we will use it in a book discussion series. Although her short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, reviewed previously by Mark Sherouse, won the Pulitzer Prize, I thought her first novel might also be an attractive choice. It had a feature film made of it in 2006, starring Kal Penn (who plays one of the new doctors in "House").

A work of remarkably fine observation, The Namesake depicts the very different views of life of a family of four--first-generation immigrants from India (the parents) and second-generation ethnic Americans (the brother and sister). It is also a sharp reflection of the foreign student, academic, and professional and the atmospheres of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City, a particular mix of lifestyles that Lahiri's prose details in cinematic fashion.

I thought the book captured the dynamics of life in an Asian immigrant community very adroitly.

Hope everyone else got some summer reading in before the fall rush!