Join our host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland selected by club member Lois Toolan.

“The premise of The Lowland is startlingly operatic. Udayan, an idealistic student in Calcutta in the 1960s, is drawn into Mao-inspired revolutionary politics. After his violent death, his devoted, dutiful brother, Subhash, marries his pregnant widow, Gauri, and brings her to America in hopes of giving her a new start in a new country. Their marriage, though, will remain haunted by their memories of Udayan and a terrible secret Gauri keeps to herself. The Lowland is certainly Ms. Lahiri’s most ambitious undertaking yet, and it eventually opens out into a moving family story…Ms. Lahiri’s most shining gifts as a writer come to the fore: her ability to conjure the daily texture of people’s lives, her understanding of how their personal and cultural expectations have shaped their choices, her talent for mapping moods and inchoate emotions with pointillist precision.” - Michiko Kakutani

Date: Thursday, May 20

Time: 6:30 p.m. CST

Location: Zoom Video Conference

Cost: Free