Unaccustomed Earth

Unaccustomed Earth is Lahiri's third book, with two collections of short stories and one novel. She seems to know the immigrant experience, the loneliness, the out-of-sync feeling with the rest of the world. Her characters try to form new bonds and try to change to fit the new world in which they are living. The title comes from a Hawthorne quote that promotes the benefits moving into new soil, both for plants and for people. These benefits are subtle in the stories presented here and only occur after an initial crisis of transplanting takes place.