The Lowland

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Namesake comes an extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers: a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death.
 
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up.  But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. 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 goes 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.

Masterly suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, The Lowland is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity. It is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers.

“Formidable . . . Lahiri’s precise writing and clarity of expression cast [a] spell. She is an expert in writing about dislocation—the feeling of being simultaneously two places at once and not necessarily belonging to either . . . The Lowland examines at the nature of sacrifice and love, the price of personal freedom, and what really constitutes the greater good.” —Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor

“Exquisite, graceful . . . The Lowland has complicated the ancient story of sibling rivalry by infusing it with real affection, capturing the way two brothers need and rely on each other . . . Lahiri shifts nimbly between moments of mischief and happiness to scenes of dread and violence. Her prose, as always, is a miracle of delicate strength, like those threads of spider silk that, wound together, are somehow stronger than steel . . . Given the trauma Subhash and Gauri have experienced, their whispered lives are perfectly understandable, and Lahiri renders them in clear, restrained prose . . . Mesmerizing, devastating.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World

“Compelling . . . Tracking lives across four generations and two continents with crisp confidence, Lahiri has a marvelous eye for the pivotal detail . . . A novel about idealism, betrayal and the bonds of brotherhood. Four stars” —Helen Rogan, People (a People Pick)
 
“Thrilling . . . elegant . . . told in a vigorous, straightforward prose . . . The reader’s heart remains firmly drawn toward Subhash, a good man too often trapped by circumstance . . . The lowland in [the family’s] neighborhood serves as telling metaphor for the dark places that haunt our lives. In its quiet intensity, it reminds us of the triumphant fiction of Alice Munro and William Trevor.” —Dan Cryer, Newsday
 
“Potent, memorable, poignant . . . Lahiri has reached literary high ground . . . A story as rich as the titular terrain of the Calcutta neighborhood she profiles, where an early tragedy irrevocably fractures [a] family . . . The Lowland may sweep across generations and continents, through historical upheaval and contemporary angst, but its tone, its language, is subtle, whisper-like and confessional. It is at its most illuminating—at its peak—in its intimacy.” —Olivia Barker, USA Today
 
“A delicately harrowing family saga spanning more than 60 years. Its plot pivots on secrets and lies, and it is as much about parenting as politics . . . Lahiri has a devastatingly keen ear for the tensions and misunderstandings endemic in our closest relationships . . . Affecting.” —Hephzibah Anderson, Bloomberg News
 
“The Jhumpa Lahiri story keeps adding intriguing chapters . . . [In The Lowland], her evocation of New England and Calcutta is even more evocative and elegant than in her previous books. Her tone is dispassionate but warm, making the narrative of the turbulent lives of the main characters seem more like a tone poem than a symphony. When you can write prose like that it almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, but that Zen-like ability to observe without commenting is even more effective in the passages of life in India amid poverty and repression . . . [We are] fortunate: We have Lahiri to restore mystery, maximize surprise.” —Ed Siegel, The Artery
 
“Magnificent . . . Lahiri skillfully roots the story in people . . . There is a noticeable shift in the magnitude and ambition of [this] novel, [but] this broad change in location does not affect the heart of Lahiri’s talent: her ability to create dynamic characters with both small gestures and broad strokes . . . Lahiri’s careful prose and focus on character development assures that her pacing is never harried or awkward. All her characters are sympathetic but still have very real flaws that we recognize with exquisite intimacy . . . Though the novel powerfully stands alone, as a Lahiri disciple it seems [to me] as though her former tales were all leading up to this magnum opus . . . Both a soaring, cross-continental, cross-generational view of a shifting culture, and a quiet examination of the meaning of family.” —Natalie Gadbois, The Michigan Daily
 
“Lahiri tracks, with patience and tenacity, the emotional and geographical distances that time opens up between people, the things that get lost in those spaces, and the rare and surprising things that endure. In The Lowland, we are all emigrants, not from one country to another but from the present to the future. Lahiri’s prose style is legendarily smooth, unshowy, unvarying . . . The Lowland gains tremendous power as it goes on. Language takes on the role of time itself. The Lowland feels less like a story being told than a tide slowly going out, gradually, inevitably revealing the shape of what was there all along.” —Lev Grossman, Time
 
“Revealingly heartfelt . . . Poignant, deft . . . delves shrewdly into themes of dispossession and provisionality . . . The novel is fondly attentive to its natural settings . . . Lahiri movingly affirms the loyalty and selflessness of Subhash, who emerges as the novel’s hero. In an existence in which everything seems transitory and relative, he creates a fixed abode out of the stability of his love.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Amazing . . . The Lowland again reveals Lahiri’s mastery of language and her ability to create characters so real they draft you into their very minds and souls . . . One of the most complex themes of the novel is family: What makes a parent a parent? Lahiri advance[s] the setting to being so essential that it becomes a character in the book. William Faulkner was a master at making settings seem like real characters. This novel may very well demonstrate that Lahiri is as good or possibly better at this than Faulkner. She showers the reader with genuine sentiment without falling over the line into sentimentality. She is a rising star in the literary world. If you love good literature, The Lowland is a must read.” —Edmund August, Louisville Courier-Journal

“Poignant . . . An ambitious undertaking, spanning decades and continents as the author tells the story of three generations of a family in Calcutta and Rhode Island. [There are] moments of brilliant clarity and precision, [and] a delicate interweaving of past and present throughout. Lahiri is concerned with what it means to sacrifice love and family for a higher social good, what it costs to insist on personal freedom . . . Lahiri has an uncanny ability to control and mold sentences and action, imbuing the characters with dignity and restraint. [She is] a writer of integrity and skill. There is an important truth here—that life often denies us understanding, and sometimes all there is to hold on to is our ability to endure.” —Ellah Allfrey, NPR
 
“Lahiri’s work resists pithy quotation, and until now, has avoided fireworks. But [her] first sentence works like a slow fuse. Divided consciousness has been her recurrent theme, [which] the transplanted Indian families in her earlier work know well. This time, she daringly redraws the map—[as] one of two close-knit brothers becomes a revolutionary while the other proceeds to the U.S.  Loyalties are tested, twisted to extremes that become clear only toward the end. Here worlds, new and old, contain terrors.” —Ann Hulbert, The Atlantic
 
“Astonishing . . . A masterful work that shines with brilliant language . . . Lahiri’s rich descriptions tell [a] wider story by shifting viewpoints between family members . . . She once again dazzles us with beautiful words that flow effortlessly, creating a narrative that takes hold and won’t let go . . . [The Lowland] raises questions of love, parenting and finding one’s way in the world. Lahiri puts her readers deep into the heart of this family . . . We are fortunate that she has shared her words with all of us, and with these words has created a masterpiece.” —Jim Carmin, Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“Lahiri returns confidently to the themes that have earned her critical praise, an eager audience and a Pulitzer Prize: cultural dissonance between generations; the uneasiness of the recently emigrated; the unbreakable, unpredictable bonds of family. Lahiri has written elegantly and poignantly about Bengali families separated by distance and tradition [before], but in The Lowland she adds a historical dimension that creates a vital, intriguing backdrop . . . Her sublimely unfolding plot and her delicate revelations about the relationships between these characters are best savored with fresh eyes . . . Their story is unique, but it’s also universal, a reminder of the past’s pull on us all. The Lowland never loses sight of its very human tragedies and triumphs.” —Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald
 
“Masterful . . . Cumulatively, as each of her characters contends with his or her particular life, there is a quiet truth that seems more lifelike and devastating than any dramatic literary moment . . . What Lahiri shows best, with her steady prose, is the reckoning of life against a single personality . . . For those unfamiliar with her work, The Lowland is a fine introduction, exhibiting why she has won, among other awards, a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Devotees of the author will be thrilled with her new novel.” —Holly Silva, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
 
“Her most ambitious book . . . imagined with uncommon grace and generosity . . . The Lowland examines the hopelessness unleashed in a family when a favorite son chooses to become a terrorist. Lahiri expertly delves into the repercussions this causes in several generations. She demonstrates with every sentence that the Pulitzer Prize she won with her first book was no fluke. The beauty of this novel is in its everyday details, including Lahiri’s lush descriptions of landscapes . . . Her evocation of what it’s like to care for young children is spot-on, [and she’s] particularly deft at portraying the interplay of generations and the changes in individuals as they age.” —Jenny Shank, Dallas Morning News

“Provocative, intriguing . . . thrillingly nuanced. The intimate connection between siblings informs and impacts every other relationship in The Lowland . . . Using the turbulent lives of two brothers as her lens, Lahiri poses hard questions about the political and emotional ramifications of colonialism . . . Thronged with twists and turns, including a tragedy that forever upends the family, this book is Lahiri’s most ambitious work to date, brimming with pain and love and all of life’s profound beauty.” —Diane Mehta, O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place. In The Lowland, it’s the 1960s, and violent revolution has come to Calcutta and America, with reverberations to be felt by generations to come. Every family story is somehow a war story; Lahiri has a talent for coolly illustrating this truth.” — Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
 
“Striking . . . honest and insightful . . . A compassionate tale of family, betrayal, and political ideology. . . The fraternal relationship and the relationship to the land drives the novel to its climax [with] vivid prose . . . At the heart of it, amidst the political turmoil and historical narrative, The Lowland is a story of the difficulties of marriage and parenthood—territory Lahiri approaches with new insights and an inimitable vigor.” —Tausif Noor, New York Daily News
“Provocative, intriguing . . . thrillingly nuanced. The intimate connection between siblings informs and impacts every other relationship in The Lowland . . . Using the turbulent lives of two brothers as her lens, Lahiri poses hard questions about the political and emotional ramifications of colonialism . . . Thronged with twists and turns, including a tragedy that forever upends the family, this book is Lahiri’s most ambitious work to date, brimming with pain and love and all of life’s profound beauty.” —Diane Mehta, O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place. In The Lowland, it’s the 1960s, and violent revolution has come to Calcutta and America, with reverberations to be felt by generations to come. Every family story is somehow a war story; Lahiri has a talent for coolly illustrating this truth.” — Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
 
“Striking . . . honest and insightful . . . A compassionate tale of family, betrayal, and political ideology. . . The fraternal relationship and the relationship to the land drives the novel to its climax [with] vivid prose . . . At the heart of it, amidst the political turmoil and historical narrative, The Lowland is a story of the difficulties of marriage and parenthood—territory Lahiri approaches with new insights and an inimitable vigor.” —Tausif Noor, New York Daily News

“When you hear a novel features a ‘twist,’ you might imagine a big reveal. Jhumpa Lahiri is a master of dramatic turns, but not in the conventional sense. She lets tension build slowly until something snaps. What she twists is you . . . In The Lowland, pressure grows [and] every character’s actions are up for debate. The Lowland is about how history is just the same mistakes, made by different generations. But it’s also about how time can trick you into believing that change is possible. Lahiri plays with that [idea] brilliantly, devoting pages to fleeting moments, only to deliver the book’s most life-shattering event in a telegram just seven words long. The Lowland offers new revelations right up to the last page. Some say that a twist is most effective when the reader figures it out a split second before the author reveals it. But Lahiri shows that a twist can be even more devastating when you’ve been afraid that it might happen all along. Grade: A.” —Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly

“Gorgeous . . . The painful partitioning of a great country is echoed in the life of one family in Lahiri’s novel of love’s tragic missteps and the sustained devastation of personal independence. The Lowland’s beating heart is the relationship between two devoted brothers . . . Lahiri’s beautifully wrought characters make decisions that isolate them inside their haunted thoughts.” —Susanna Sonnenberg, More
 
“Leave it to Lahiri to create yet another novel that’s as transporting and educational as it is beautiful and emotive. The Lowland explores the bonds of love, family, and obligation against backdrops from the radical Naxalite movement of 1960s Calcutta to the tidal shores of collegiate Rhode Island . . . A writer of Lahiri’s caliber is always greeted with fanfare, but The Lowland is among the biggest events of the season.” —Elle

“Pulitzer Prize-winner Lahiri’s unparalleled ability to transform the smallest moments into whole lives pinnacles in this extraordinary story of two brothers coming of age in the political tumult of 1960s India. . . . Lahiri is remarkable, achieving multilayered meaning in a simple act . . . [This is] is deservedly one of this year’s most anticipated books. Banal words of praise simply won’t do justice; perhaps what is needed is a three-word directive: just read it.” —Terry Hong, Library Journal (starred review)

“A classic story of family and ideology at odds, love and risk closely twined. . . . Lahiri’s subject has always been the complex roots of families, cut and transplanted, trailing thwarted dreams and former selves. . . . The Lowland, her most ambitious work to date, marks the author’s shift in perspective toward that of a parent, with all its heightened vulnerability. . . . As the stripped-down sentences accrue with a kind of geologic inevitability, Lahiri renders the undertow of grief and loss . . . Novels are often elegies for things that would otherwise be lost to time. Here, over the passing decades, a sacred marshland is sold to developers; a daughter loses a mother, then becomes one. An author, at the height of her artistry, spins the globe and comes full circle.” —Megan O’Grady, Vogue
 
“I wait for Lahiri’s books as if they’re rare comets and hold them in my hands like my firstborn.” —Megan Angelo, Glamour

“A tale of two continents in an era of political tumult, rendered with devastating depth and clarity by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. The narrative proceeds from the simplicity of a fairy tale into a complex novel of moral ambiguity and aftershocks, with revelations that continue through decades and generations until the very last page. . . . The story of two brothers in India who are exceptionally close to each other, and yet completely different, the novel spans more than four decades in the life of [their] family, shaped and shaken by the events that have brought them together and tear them apart. . . . Lahiri has earned renown for her short stories, [yet] this masterful novel deserves to attract an even wider readership.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Haunting . . . A novel that crosses generations, oceans, and the chasms within families . . . 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.” —Publishers Weekly (boxed review)
 
“An absolute triumph. Lahiri uses a gorgeously rendered Calcutta landscape to profound effect. . . . As shocking complexities tragedies, and revelations multiply, Lahiri astutely examines the psychological nuances of conviction, guilt, grief, marriage, and parenthood, and delicately but firmly dissects the moral conundrums inherent in violent revolution. Renowned for her exquisite prose and penetrating insights, Lahiri attains new heights of artistry—flawless transparency, immersive intimacy with characters and place—in her spellbinding fourth book and second novel. A magnificent, universal, and indelible work of literature. . . . Lahiri’s standing increases with each book, and this is her most compelling yet.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
 


From the Hardcover edition.