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Cathryn Conroy
A Brilliant, Extraordinary Short Story Collection That Is a Delight to Read
These nine very different short stories have one thing in common: They are all stories of love and loss, happiness and sadness as people adjust to the human condition. From adultery to abandonment, loneliness to falling deeply in love, each of the stories in this stellar, Pulitzer Prize-winning collection by Jhumpa Lahiri is absolutely brilliant.
I thought "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" was the most poignant and imaginative of the collection. It told of the crushing heartache of the 1971 civil war in Pakistan, but it's all seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old Indian girl who lives in Massachusetts and the man who dines with her family daily as he worries about his family caught in the crossfires of the war.
My favorite was "This Blessed House" about Indian newlyweds who move into a house and keep finding Christian paraphernalia hidden in the home—from a porcelain effigy of Jesus to a 3D postcard of St. Francis to a statue of the Virgin Mary. The husband is annoyed, while the wife thinks it's hilarious. How they resolve it says much about their marriage.
This is an extraordinary collection of literature that is a delight to read.