This is the story of Ashoke and Ashima.  Ashoke and Ashima have an arranged marriage and move to live in America where Ashoke is a student.  Ashima lives a fairly isolated life compared to that she would have had in India.  Yet she is a good and faithful wife and has two children.  The first child they have ends up with the name Gogol, for several reasons.  The name Gogol has great significance to Ashoke and he has a difficult time conveying to Gogol the importance of his name.   Gogol is ashamed of it and goes by his other name, Nikhil, which fit into his American life a little better.

Nikhil has tension with his parents throughout the book as his Bengali and American identities pull him in different directions.  Nikhil is very involved with an American girl when his father dies and he starts to re-examine his life a little bit more.  He becomes more involved with family again and becomes more understanding of his father now that he is no longer present.

This is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I only hope that Jhumpa Lahiri continues to write and will write more novels.

Since this is a collection of short stories you would be able to read one and put it down easily, without feeling you are in the middle of something.  It was so good that I had a hard time putting the book down once I started.  The first story is about Ruma whose mother has died and her father comes to visit her in her new home in a new city.  It starts with her conflicting emotions about doing the “right” thing and inviting him to live with her.  It is the story of a father and a daughter and how complex those relationships can be.  Her writing leaves a clear, relatable impression such as this excerpt, “She wanted to tell him how normal it had felt, to have her father there.  But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.” p. 55

The last three short stories are continuations of each other.  This made me very happy because after each of the first two I ended the story feeling like I wanted more, so it was wonderful that the next one carried on, just from a different perspective and a different time.  It is the story of Hema and Kaushik and how they are brought together as their families are friends and how they end up reuniting later in life.  First they talk about their memories of each other and then the story moves to present time.

Everything that I have read by Jhumpa Lahiri I have enjoyed and this was possibly my favorite.  If you are looking for something to read it has my recommendation!