In terms of form, I tend to be drawn to really stylistic work, really poppy stuff like Saunders or Thompson or (I'm just now discovering, post to come) Foer. It seems oddly more honest, somehow, to leave your stories in the hands of raving maniacs, simpletons, awkwardly-voiced bureaucrats, or (as in Asterios Polyp, my other current read) identical twins that died in the womb but stuck around to narrate their brother's story.
All of which is to say that Jhumpa Lahiri is not right in my wheelhouse -- a blend of first-person and third-person narratives, most of them with a limited omniscience, telling straight-up realist stories. But guess what? It's good! It can lean a little far into "let's get excited about food" prose, but there's a rich depth to the characters and the stories, spinning large emotion from relatively small arcs. Best, I think, are "This Blessed House" (a funny little explosive piece about a couple finding an endless trove of Catholic trinkets in their new home), "Sexy" (a brutal dissection of a brief and intense affair), and I think "When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dinner." But hey, it's all good. Will I seek out more Lahiri? Probably not until I've got more Foer under my belt at least, but she's all right, lads and ladies.
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