The Lowland
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3.9 • 25 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK • TIME TOP FICTION BOOK
The Lowland is a powerful novel from Pulitzer Prize winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri. Two brothers bound by tragedy; a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past; a country torn by revolution: set in both India and America The Lowland explores the price of idealism, and a love that can last long past death.
Growing up in Calcutta, born just 15 months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead of them. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty: he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother's political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America. But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family's home, he comes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind—including those seared in the heart of his brother's wife.
Suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, The Lowland expands the range of one of our most dazzling storytellers, seamlessly interweaving the historical and the personal across generations and geographies. This masterly novel of fate and will, exile and return, is a tour de force and an instant classic.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author returns with her second novel, a lyrical, moving tale of familial bonds. Brothers Udayan and Subhash are close enough to almost be extensions of one other, even though they're polar opposites. Fiery Udayan is a political activist in the brothers’ native Calcutta, while Subhash pursues a quiet, scholarly life in New England. When Udayan becomes involved with a Maoist movement, devastating consequences reverberate across generations and borders. Lahiri's prose is exquisite, and she tells a story of astonishing depth that touches on sweeping themes—love, grief, marriage, and parenthood—while succeeding in crafting characters who still feel familiar and authentic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lahiri's (The Namesake) haunting second novel crosses generations, oceans, and the chasms that despair creates within families. Subhash and Udayan are brothers, 15 months apart, born in Calcutta in the years just before Indian independence and the country's partition. As children, they are inseparable: Subhash is the elder, and the careful and reserved one; Udayan is more willful and wild. When Subhash moves to the U.S. for graduate school in the late 1960s, he has a hard time keeping track of Udayan's involvement in the increasingly violent Communist uprising taking place throughout West Bengal. The only person who will eventually be able to tell Subhash, if not quite explain, what happened to his brother is Gauri, Udayan's love-match wife, of whom the brothers' parents do not approve. Forced by circumstances, Gauri and Subhash form their own relationship, one both intimate and distant, which will determine much of the rest of their adult lives. Lahiri's skill is reflected not only in her restrained and lyric prose, but also in her moving forward chronological time while simultaneously unfolding memory, which does not fade in spite of the years. A formidable and beautiful book. 350,000-copy announced first printing.
Customer Reviews
The Lowland
The book started off slow but picked up by the second chapter. It was an exciting, emotional saga. The characters were well developed! Loved the descriptive scenery. Suspenseful and thought provoking. I would have given it a 5 star rating but didn't like the ending.