I started reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories from 2000; and the first story is just lovely and horrible and beautiful.

It follows a couple living together, the husband, at 35 finishing his doctoral thesis, the wife, slightly younger, working as an editor/proofer. Beautifully explaining her planning skills, her ability to organize everything, and always be prepared. Her attention to meticulous details is highlighted so well. Unfortunately the child she is pregnant with, dies immediately before birth which slowly seperates the couple.

A note from the electric company comes in the mail, letting all the residents know that their power will be out for one hour at 8 pm each night for five days. And as they eat together, the room lit by a few remaining birthday candles in the darkness, they tell each other one secret that they have never before told, a pattern that continues each night, and redefines their collapsing relationship.

It is really an amazing story, I love the way their relationship unfolds with each hour of darkness, but I don’t want to spoil the
ending for you, so I will stop there.

And this is just the first story in this amazing collection by the Pulitzer Prize winning Lahiri. Each short take on life is torturous and beautiful, each with tragedy, but nothing so extreme it is not believable. That is where her prose truly shines, her ability to take an absolutely normal situation and make it into a painting of tragedy, love, and humanity.