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May 18, 2021tjdickey rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Lahiri strikes boldly off into new territory for her - written first in Italian and then translated here into English, "Whereabouts" is a pithy exploration of the narrator's discontent. The brief chapters resonate with thick and palpable melancholy, each a very poetic vignette on a friend or acquaintance, and a location (including "in my head"). The writing may be terse, but is lyrical as ever for Lahiri, and rich in association and leitmotifs from one to the other - she strings together distinct pearls onto the narrative thread.