These creations had more depth, felt more real. We met Indians suffering from suicidal tendencies, depression, alcoholism. Lahiri’s second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, pushed the envelope a bit, with characters that occasionally broke out of the cookie-cutter mold. They take the best this country has to offer immigrants-education, material comfort-and live here making do with those benefits. Together they accept life in America without compromising their origins. Her female cleaves to tradition, wears saris, whips up delicious curries with minimal equipment and ingredients. Lahiri favors a male doctoral student who will end up making a career in the U.S.

In her first collection of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, and her first novel, The Namesake, we got to know her favorite type of people: The Indian academic and his wife. (Full disclosure here: Perhaps because I, like Lahiri, am of Indian heritage now living in America, I know all too many people like the ones in her stories.) Still, whether Lahiri writes about Indians, Americans or a mix of the nationalities, she tended in prior work to fit her characters neatly into customized little boxes, no parts of them stretching over the boundaries. Still, to this reviewer, Lahiri’s characters prior to The Lowland always seemed too stereotypical. The simplicity of her storytelling sets her apart from other writers of south Asian heritage. Lahiri brings much talent to the page, expending little more effort, it feels, than the writing equivalent of a few strokes of a pencil on a blank sheet of paper to sketch her characters (the colors fill themselves in). Gauri also stands apart another way-as by far the most interesting character in The Lowland…or most of Lahiri’s other fiction.

Lahiri draws a woman so intent on making a life on her own, alone, that she’s willing to break hearts, shatter minds, and screw up futures…fully aware of the intense pain her desire for independence causes those in her immediate entourage. A selfish and heartless woman, she seems to care little or not at all for those closest to her. In a story about nice people, ready to sacrifice their future for the sake of others, who believe in family, togetherness, and being there for one another through good and bad, Gauri appears starkly egotistical.

It’s easy to see why some readers and reviewers of Jhumpa Lahiri’s new novel dislike its female protagonist, Gauri.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri