Figuring out what to read is among the many tasks involved in preparing for a vacation. When much of your daily reading is for information, one is always trying to keep up with what you should be reading, not what you would like to read. As I was getting ready to leave for a recent trip where sitting on my derriere in a beach chair was the main planned activity, it occured to me that I had no idea what to bring. I remembered picking up a copy of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri last summer – never had a chance to start it, but thought this would be the time.

This is the first novel from Lahiri, author of Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories that earned the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Namesake was published in 2003 and so I am a mere 6 years and hundreds of stellar reviews late to the party. Her prose is refreshingly clear and descriptive – a tale of trying to bridge the world of old country customs and identity with the new immigrant reality; of being “other”, not completely American nor Bengali. This is a story that resonates with anyone that is within or is a generation removed from the immigrant experience. Suffice it to say, the beach was great and the book was fabulous. Now I look forward to reading Interpreter of Maladies as well as her newest collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. In the first, I will be close to 10 years late, in the latter, a mere 10 months late – I can’t wait.