#thelitbit // Unaccustomed Earth

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

From the surface down into the depths and complexities of the human heart and mind, these stories on the secrets of family life bring understanding and empathy across generations and life circumstances.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Noteworthy excerpts:

"He wanted to shield her from the deterioration that inevitably took place in the course of a marriage, and from the conclusion he sometimes feared was true: that the entire enterprise of having a family, of putting children on this earth, as gratifying as it sometimes felt, was flawed from the start."

"In their opinion their children were immune from the hardships and injustices they had left behind in India, as if the inoculations the pediatrician had given Sudha and Rahul when they were babies guaranteed them an existence free of suffering."

"But in the days after her death I realized Mrs. Gharibian had been right, there had been nothing worse than waiting for it to come, that the void that followed was easier to bear than the solid weight of those days."

“But he knew that it was impossible, wherever he landed, not to form attachments.”

[read  on]