Pulitizer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri is well known for delicately and masterfully handling the struggles of Indian immigrants as they attempt to bridge the culture of their home country with that of American culture. While Unaccustomed Earth deals with the same issues, this time that juxtaposition is not the focus. Instead, Lahiri delives into the more complicated, private family issues, with expert results.

Eight lengthy short stories make up Unaccustomed Earth; several of those stories are linked. Most stories involve an interracial couple–which automatically creates tension in Lahiri’s stories–but again, that dynamic is not the focus of this collection. Here, the characters try to establish sound relationships with those closest to them, never fully realizing that the other person is not aligning with them. The title story involves Ruma and her father, who is vacationing in her home. Traditionally, Ruma knows that she should be inviting her father to live with her following the death of her mother, but she is reluctant to ask him. Her father enjoys the company but is anticipating waiting for his stay to end so that he can see his secret girlfriend. While Ruma believes the two are connecting, her father is only connecting with Ruma’s young son. In “Only Goodness,” a sister tries to support her misfit brother through his alcoholism, which their parents choose to ignore. The brother tries to overcome his disease and reconnect with his sister after years of pushing her away. The linked stories involving Hema and Kaushik take them through childhood until death; never once do they fully realize the effect they had on each other.

Again, Lahiri’s sense of understatement and reservation pervades the collection, making her characters’s stilted emotions all the more powerful. And of course, her elegant sense of language continues to transcend the scant plotlines she creates. If anything negative could be said about Lahiri’s writing, it would be that she repeated herself with her first two books. However, yet again, she effortlessly crafts the way people attempt to connect and largely fail in the most eloquent ways possible.

Buy Unaccustomed Earth from Knopf.