The middle story in this compassionate collection follows disparate folk loosely linked by a set of steps. Among them, there’s the mother who climbs them first thing in the morning, the girl who descends them at two in the afternoon and the screenwriter who lives at the foot of them, and who stays home nearly all day. Together, these men, women and children represent a cross section of society. One comes from ‘a faraway tropical city’; another compares the grubby sight of graffiti to hearing ‘foreigners talking on the street’. Yet, here they are, existing side by side in a Roman neighbourhood, going about their ordinary daily routines.
Which is what the Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri does so well: pays attention to the everyday. She did it in Whereabouts, a slim tale of a single soul moving thoughtfully about her city, and she does it again in Roman Stories.
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