Whereabouts

Review by Booklist Review

Lahiri's passion for Italian inspired her to write In Other Words (2016), her first nonfiction book, in that language; to translate two novels by Italian writer Domenico Starnone, and to write this novel in Italian, then translate it into English. The result of this process is language that seems to have been sieved through a fine mesh, each word a gleaming gemstone. Such expressive refinement perfectly embodies Lahiri's unnamed, solitary narrator, a woman in her forties who teaches at a university and lives alone in an unnamed Italian city. Declaring, "Solitude: it's become my trade," she examines her life in first person vignettes, each yoked to her whereabouts in chapters with such titles as "In the Piazza," "In My Head," and "On the Couch." There is melancholy here, but these concentrated, exquisitely detailed, poignant, and rueful episodes also pulse with the narrator's devotion to observation and her pushing through depression to live on her terms. She muses over her "unhappy origins" and recounts her disappointing love life, but she also exalts in her lively neighborhood, in the country beneath skies as moody as she is, and by the tempestuous sea, all while recording her stealthy battle against her tendency to burrow into her shell. With a painterly interplay of light and shadows, Lahiri creates an incisive and captivating evocation of the nature and nexus of place and self.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lahiri's acclaim and literary intrepidness will lure fiction lovers to her first novel since The Lowland (2013), a Man Booker finalist.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The latest from Pulitzer winner Lahiri (The Interpreter of Maladies) is a meditative and aching snapshot of a life in suspension. The unnamed narrator, a single, middle-aged woman, lives a quiet life in an unnamed Italian city, ambling between cafes and storefronts, dinner parties with friends, and a leisurely career as a writer and teacher. The tranquil surface of her life belies a deeper unrest: a frayed, distant relationship with her widowed mother, romantic longings projected onto unavailable friends, and constant second-guessing of the paths her life has taken. The novel is told in short vignettes introducing a new scene and characters whose relationships are fertile ground for Lahiri's impressive powers of observation. In a museum, for instance, sunlight refracted through the glass roof "brightens and darkens the room in turns. It's a panorama that makes me think of the sea, of swimming in a clear blue patch underwater." Throughout, Lahiri's poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display. This beautifully written portrait of a life in passage captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Scholar, writer, professor, lover, friend: the first-person narrator of this slim but never slight volume deeply observes others while contemplating her own life over the course of four seasons. For 10 years she has been a fixture in her neighborhood, eating daily at the same trattoria, swimming at the same pool, and shopping in the same markets. She embraces solitude, taking comfort in routine, yet her musings overflow with life. Each vignette, only three or four pages long, feels like a beautifully wrapped gift, whether sharing her thoughts about her fearful, withholding mother or noting how much she resembles the father who introduced her to the joys of theater. She confesses to a mild flirtation with a friend's husband and to an outsize envy of a younger woman who boldly pushes against the constraints that held her own generation in check. Then, having accepted a year long fellowship abroad, she prepares her apartment for sublet, stripping it of all outward traces of the self she has laid bare before us. VERDICT The Pulitzer Prize-winning Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies) brilliantly elevates the quotidian to the sublime in this gorgeous stream-of-consciousness window into the interior life of an accomplished woman. Written in Italian and translated by Lahiri herself; with special appeal to readers of Rachel Cusk's "Outline" trilogy.--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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On the Sidewalk In the mornings after breakfast I walk past a small marble plaque propped against the high wall flanking the road. I never knew the man who died. But over the years I've come to know his name, his surname. I know the month and day he was born and the month and day his life ended. This was a man who died two days after his birthday, in February. It must have been an accident on his bike or his motorcycle. Or maybe he was walking at night, distracted. Maybe he was hit by a passing car. He was forty-­four when it happened. I suppose he died in this very spot, on the sidewalk, next to the wall that sprouts neglected plants, which is why the plaque has been arranged at the bottom, at the feet of passersby. The road is full of curves and snakes uphill. It's a bit dangerous. The sidewalk is vexing, crowded with exposed tree roots. Some sections are nearly impossible to negotiate because of the roots. That's why I, too, tend to walk on the road. There's usually a candle burning in a container of red glass, along with a small bunch of flowers and the statue of a saint. There's no photograph of him. Above the candle, attached to the wall, there's a note from his mother, written by hand, encased in a milky plastic sleeve. It greets those who stop for a moment to ponder the death of her son. I would like to personally thank those who dedicate a few minutes of their time to my son's memory, but if that's not possible, I thank you anyway, from the bottom of my heart, it says. I've never seen the mother or any other person in front of the plaque. Thinking of the mother just as much as the son, I keep walking, feeling slightly less alive. On the Street Now and then on the streets of my neighborhood I bump into a man I might have been involved with, maybe shared a life with. He always looks happy to see me. He lives with a friend of mine, and they have two children. Our relationship never goes beyond a longish chat on the sidewalk, a quick coffee together, perhaps a brief stroll in the same direction. He talks excitedly about his projects, he gesticulates, and now and then as we're walking our synchronized bodies, already quite close, discreetly overlap. One time he accompanied me into a lingerie shop because I had to choose a pair of tights to wear under a new skirt. I'd just bought the skirt and I needed the tights for that same evening. Our fingers grazed the textures splayed out on the counter as we sorted through the various colors. The binder of samples was like a book full of flimsy transparent pages. He was totally calm among the bras, the nightgowns, as if he were in a hardware store and not surrounded by intimate apparel. I was torn between the green and the purple. He was the one who convinced me to choose the purple, and the saleslady, putting the tights into the bag, said: Your husband's got a great eye. Pleasant encounters like this break up our daily meanderings. We have a chaste, fleeting bond. As a result it can't advance, it can't take the upper hand. He's a good man, he loves my friend and their children. I'm content with a firm embrace even though I don't share my life with anyone. Two kisses on the cheeks, a short walk along a stretch of road. Without saying a word to each other we know that, if we chose to, we could venture into something reckless, also pointless. This morning he's distracted. He doesn't recognize me until I'm right in front of him. He's crossing a bridge at one end and I'm arriving from the other. We stop in the middle and look at the wall that flanks the river, and the shadows of pedestrians cast on its surface. They look like skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another. The bridge is flat and yet it looks as if the figures--­vaporous shapes against the solid wall--­are walking uphill, always climbing. They're like inmates who proceed, silently, toward a dreadful end. "It would be great, one day, to film this procession," he says. "You can't always see it, it depends on the position of the sun. But I'm always amazed, there's something hypnotizing about it. Even when I'm in a hurry, I stop to watch." "So do I." He pulls out his cell phone. "Should we try?" "How does it look?" I ask. "No good. This contraption can't capture them." We continue to watch the mute spectacle, the dark bodies that advance, never stopping. "Where are you headed?" "Work." "Me too." "Should we have a coffee?" "I don't have time today." "Okay, ciao, see you soon." We say goodbye, separate. Then we, too, become two shadows projected onto the wall: a routine spectacle, impossible to capture. Excerpted from Whereabouts: A Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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