Jhumpa Lahiri knows how to spin a good yarn. And don’t you love it when you open a book and it holds you from the very first paragraph? Lahiri achieves this effortlessly in The Namesake, a novel about a family of immigrants living in the United States.
Lahiri has a tremendous gift – exploring sensitively the tensions between family loyalty and individuality. The Namesake is a human story that will resonate with everyone who has grown up in a family. But more than that, it is an exploration of cultural identity. The characters seem effortlessly sketched, are utterly believable, and wonderfully sympathetic.
This is very engaging and warm novel. Recommended.