Beginning in America, and spilling back over memories and generations to India, Unaccustomed Earth follows new lives forged in the wake of loss.

There are stories in which deeply sympathetic characters are forced to navigate their ways in unfamiliar landscapes. In the title story, a mothers death leaves a space neither daughter nor husband knows how to fill. In Only Goodness a younger brothers spiraling alcoholism threatens to destroy his loyal sisters family. And in a trio of linked stories we follow the lives of a girl and a boy who, one memorable winter, share a house in suburban Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until they are brought together years later by a chance meeting in Rome.

Eight luminous stories longer and richer than any she has yet written explore the heart of family life and the immigrant experience, taking us from America to Europe, India and Thailand. Infused with eloquent warmth and lyrical simplicity, Unaccustomed Earth confirms Jhumpa Lahiris status as storyteller of unrivalled empathy.