She allows them to grow as if unguided, as if she were accompanying them rather than training them through the espalier of her narration. Lahiri handles her characters without leaving any fingerprints. The generational conflicts Lahiri depicts cut across national lines the waves of admiration, competition and criticism that flow between their two families could occur between Smiths and Taylors in any suburban town and the fight for connection and control between Hema and Kaushikas children and as adultsreplays the tussle that has gone on ever since men and women lived in caves. Except for their names, 'Hema and Kaushik' could evoke any American's '70s childhood, any American's bittersweet acceptance of the compromises of adulthood. from 'The Custom-House,' by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an apt, rich metaphor for the transformations Lahiri oversees in these pages, in which two generations of Bengali immigrants to Americathe newcomers and their hyphenated childrenstruggle to build normal, secure lives. The fact that America is still a place where the rest of the world comes to reinvent itselfaccepting with excitement and anxiety the necessity of leaving behind the constrictions and comforts of distant customsis the underlying theme of Jhumpa Lahiri's sensitive new collection of stories, Unaccustomed Earth.
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