- This new novel from Jhumpa Lahiri is simply wonderful. We're offered small, two or three page capsules of everyday life in an unnamed Italian city, quite probably Rome. It builds slowly and powerfully, the narrator defining herself as an immensely likeable, attractive and thoughtful woman. She's never married or been in a long term relationship. She leads a solitary life but she’s very honest and open about disclosing all her small and larger secrets.
- She did not have a happy childhood. She was an only child and her parents were the very opposite of generous, caring and supportive. Her father was a miserable penny pincher who kept to himself, sitting in his armchair all day reading the newspapers. He hated going out apart from to the theatre, his only passion. Her mother was miserly too. ‘I mourn my unhappy origins’ she admits at one point.
- As a result she’s very sensitive to the lives of husbands and wives, whether neighbours or local shop and cafe owners, and particularly welcoming of their friendly gestures. She's an academic but dislikes her working environment and most of her colleagues.
- Lahiri originally wrote this novel in Italian then translated it into English. Unfortunately it shows. She drops some strange words at times, quite foreign to the native English speaker - gelid (icy cold), springing (opting), agenda (calendar/personal organiser).
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