Authors
Jhumpa Lahiri (b. 1967)
Bibliography
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Questions for Discussion and Writing
Lahiri is an American writer – but her stories of contemporary life come at us in an unprecedented mingling of cultural experience. The bookstores and the airwaves are alive with stories and memoirs that seem familiar but aren’t, old and archetypal narratives where the names and details are refreshed or estranged by globalization. One way to enjoy Lahiri’s work is to recognize familiar dimensions and qualities within it, and then to notice how she pushes off in new directions from those standard forms and beginnings.
1. Out of context, read aloud the paragraph near the beginning of the story, opening with, “Somehow, without the wife there, it didn’t seem so wrong.” By itself, what kind of story does this paragraph suggest, or belong in? In what kind of publication would you expect to find it?
2. We live in an age of Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, and other popular entertainments that are supposedly about the woes and delights of being a modern American woman. Does “Sexy” seem aware of that cultural context or backdrop? Does Lahiri’s story play with context? Where and how does it do so?
3. The final paragraph of the story does a long fade into the routine, like an early Hemingway story about love, loss, and recovery. But Hemingway’s stories are almost always centered on men, who can wander away and begin other adventures. What do you think will happen to Miranda after this story concludes? Do you think Lahiri herself knows? If she does not, why not?