Whereabouts is Jhumpa Lahiri's own translation of her Italian language novel Dove Mi Trovo. It is a slim volume that reads almost like a diary. Written as a series of vignettes with titles like In the Supermarket, At The Swimming Pool., it follows a single woman in her forties as she lives her day to day life in Italy , and is a meditation on isolation, loneliness and growing older, which makes it sound dull and depressing, but in actual fact it is neither. The writing is gorgeous, incredibly evocative and showing the beauty in the everyday , from descriptions of fruits and vegetables in the marketplace to her observations of the people around her, locals and tourists alike. I loved that the book ended on a hopeful note, with the promise of more for our unnamed narrator.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Whereabouts is the long-awaited new novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri in which she returns to the world map of literature in an Italian atmosphere. It's no easy feat to describe the plot as this is very much a character study about the narrator and protagonist’s life. It features an unnamed Italian woman in her 40s who is single and living a quiet, contemplative life in an unnamed Italian city, which she had moved to after itching to leave her birthplace. She's insecure, shy, disoriented, a stranger to herself. She is a daughter, a friend, a loner, a curious traveller and a lone observer. Working as a university employee guarantees her an unspectacular daily routine. The woman at the centre of the story oscillates between stillness and movement, between the search for identification with a place and the refusal, at the same time, to create permanent bonds. The city in which she lives, and which enchants her, is the living background of her days, almost a privileged interlocutor: the sidewalks around the house, the gardens, the bridges, the squares, the streets, the shops, the bars, the swimming pool that welcome her and the stations that occasionally take her further, to find her mother, immersed in a solitude without remedy after the premature death of her father. She meets old acquaintances, speaks to her regular barista, and meets an ex-lover.

Every now and then she runs into a friend on the street, her friend's husband, and then she thinks bittersweet, but resigned, of what could have been. Over the course of a year and in the succession of the seasons, the woman will come to an "awakening", on a day of sea and full sun that will make her feel the warmth of life, of blood. And she will make a decision that surprises even herself. Told in vignettes, some only a few pages long, each explores the woman’s observations in various different setting such as ”On the Sidewalk” and ”By the Sea”. Every season she reveals more of who she is, where she came from, what she really longs for. In the meantime, she's thinking about what you can really know about someone - even yourself. Awe and exuberance, rootedness and strangeness, Whereabouts depicts the life of an observer through atmospheric snapshots and packs a poignant punch within its short 150 pages. It's a deeply introspective, melancholy story of self-chosen loneliness and Lahiri, known for her finest powers of observation and precision in depicting figures, creates the thoughtful mood of a woman who is at a turning point in her life and whose fate is dear to you. Written in suggestive, lucid prose with a great pull and an airy feel to it. A masterpiece of subtlety and nuance from an immensely talented writer. Highly recommended.

Have you ever felt intimidated by an author's work? I have read so many amazing things about Jhumpa Lahiri's books and always felt that I would find reading her work difficult to navigate. After reading 'Whereabouts', I can honestly say that I was very wrong to have held that opinion. 'Whereabouts' is her new novella which will be published on the 4th of May by Bloomsbury and I was surprised how easily I could delve into Lahiri’s writing and the themes she presents to the reader.

The book focuses on following an unnamed middle-aged single woman who talks about her experiences of living a life of solitude in an Italian city. We follow her as she visits everyday innocuous places such as the sidewalk, street, the trattoria, the balcony amongst other locations- and yet these sites trigger strong feelings, emotions, and recollections for the protagonist.

The book was written in Italian originally and then translated by the author into English and I would like to read the Italian version as there are always phrases and sentiments that don’t easily translate from one language to another. It would be interesting to see if it would alter a reading of any of the short chapters in the book.

Lahiri’s writing is perfectly measured and presents the reader with a sense of calm, mirroring the protagonist’s cool and at times, detached discussion of some very powerful issues in her life. Her resentment of her mother is a strong theme running throughout the book, along with the deep sense of isolation and loneliness that she experiences every day even though she is surrounded by people in the city. The woman’s observations of the world around her are fascinating and gives a sense that we are with her observing the activities of unsuspecting people that she encounters. Her obsession with watching others is at times a little creepy; she actively follows strangers on the streets to see what they do, as well as friends.

Her behaviour, mannerisms, and way of existing in this bustling space is a wonderful exploration by Lahiri of loneliness and melancholy. It was hard to read some of the passages as the author brings the rawest of emotions out of her main character and presents her thoughts unfiltered to the reader.

A fascinating examination of the human condition by Lahiri who captures a great depth of feeling in her words.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jhumpa Lahiri and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with an ARC in return for my honest review.

In Whereabouts, we follow a woman through a period of her life in the city where she's always lived in Italy. It's a short book, formed by a series of mostly very short vignettes of that period.

It's a very descriptive book, in which nothing happens. You're just 'people-watching' with her throughout these snippets.

It's well written, but I didn't find it particularly interesting. You don't learn much about the main character, and the things that she observes are pretty much the same ones you would in a supermarket, coffee shop, etc.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for a free ARC of this book.

This was sadly not a book for me though I appreciate being given the chance to read it. The story jumped around and I felt lacked depth was boring and I did not want to continue reading it. Perhaps something was lost in translation.

Whereabouts is beautifully written, the succint chapters give you insight to the thoughts, fears, past and future of an unknown women in an unknown Italian city and despite the unknown you feel you know this woman.
Jhumpa Lahiris way with such few words is very clever, especially as she originally wrote the story in Italian and the translated it herself losing none of the power of the story.

A truly lovely read.

I was given a copy of Whereabouts by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

Sadly Whereabouts has been a disappointment. Lahiri's rich writing is missing here, and without it this short story is dull and forgettable.

Many thanks for the opportunity to read it.

I have wanted to read something by Lahiri for a while so when the opportunity presented itself to read this via NetGalley, I was rather keen.
I must say that I rather devoured this book. It is a poignant description of a woman's life. I was impressed by the depth of observation that Lahiri uses. Having lived in Italy myself there were many anecdotes that were of interest. In particular one that appealed was her commenting on a stationer's shop.

I was familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri's work as a translator, but not as an author. Keen as I was to explore her books, I'm glad I started with this upcoming release, because I'm now ready to devour everything else she's written. ⁠
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Whereabouts is defined as a novel, although it's written in short vignettes. Only half way through did I start picking up on clues from previous "chapters". It's a slow burner and an extremely character-driven book. Rather than a story with beginning, middle and end, Whereabouts traces a mood and a subtle emotional shift in the protagonist.
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It's about a middle aged woman in an unnamed Italian town, who's never lived anywhere else. She's a professor who lives alone, sometimes battling loneliness and other times indulgently enjoying her freedom. We trace her movements through the city, follow her in her favourite shops, watch her swim, listen to her thoughts while she attends a friend's dinner party, feel her crush on her married friend, and relive her vulnerability while she's attending to her ageing mother with whom she's never had a good relationship. ⁠
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Very slowly, our heroine experiences an internal change that gives her courage to make some decisions that would alter her life. ⁠
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Reading this felt meditative, and despite an abiding melancholy presence, it brought me some well-needed rush of feeling grounded. Lahiri's writing is poetic and observant, and her talent shines in the sparse prose of this thin volume. ⁠
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Lahiri has written this in Italian and translated it herself into English, and it flows so naturally and beautifully, proving her mastery in language. ⁠
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Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and Net Galley for my advanced digital copy.

Whereabouts is a series of vignettes in the life of a single forty-something academic woman, living in an unnamed city in Italy. The narrator tells us her thoughts and, although my copy of the book was in English, I could feel the ghost of the original Italian text behind the words. She potters around town, going to dinner parties and family celebrations, spending time with her friends and on her own.

The atmosphere of the book is rather melancholy and lonely, but never self-pitying. I enjoyed spending time with the narrator and missed her company when I finished the book.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

I wasn’t sure where to start with reviewing this very short book that the, Pulitzer Prize-winning prize winning, author translated from her original Italian language version into English. I saw another reviewer translate the Italian title not to ‘Whereabouts’ but to ‘Where I Find Myself’ and this seemed to sum-up the book far better.

There’s no driving story to this novel, but instead it’s a series of vignettes of glimpses of a middle aged woman’s solitary life. We see her with friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers but all of these interactions, apart from a shared lift journey at conference,provide her with little satisfaction.

It’s quite touching and melancholic, the push and pull of wanting freedom and time alone, whilst also a sense of loneliness and otherness against a quiet longing for a real connection that could meet both sides of the protagonist’s personality.

The writing is stunning, it’s like a form of poetry in prose, but as it lacked a driving force, and though I did enjoy reading it, I had no real motivation to read more of it.

Thank you to @bloomsburypublishing for gifting me this advance ebook arc.

Hopefully I won’t have to write too many more reviews where I say how much the book made me miss the outside world, but Whereabouts did. Written first in Italian, and then translated into English by the author, it follows a first-person narrator, who lives alone in Italy, through a series of places - work, a café, a swimming pool - that she has a connection to, and the people that she meets and observes. One chapter ‘At the crypt’ is written in second person to the protagonist’s father, and answers a lot of lingering questions about why she is the way that she is, although much is still left unsaid.

Whereabouts is translated by Jhumpra Lahiri from her own Italian language Dove mi trovo which predates the English, and which will make this eligible for the 20202 International Booker Prize.

Her previous three novels which I've read - The Namesake (2003), Unaccustomed Earth (2008) and The Lowland (2013) were all written in English although I have also read her translation of Domenico Starnone's Lacci as Ties (my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2099275238), a book it's difficult not to see as a response to Elena Ferrante's I giorni dell'abbandono, translated as The Days of Abandonment by Ann Goldstein.

Lahiri did publish a previous Italian language non-fiction piece, In altre parole in 2015, describing her love affair with the Italian language, which was translated into English by the same Ann Goldstein.

As my brother, aka Gumble's Yard, points out in his review of Whereabouts, for a self-translated novel there are some odd translation choices, and it's difficult to see that the process of writing in one language and translating back to another has added much to the reader's experience. See https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3684038902

The novel itself is a series of vignettes, observations, written by a woman in her late 40s living in a city (presumably in Italy). She is oddly distant from those around her, enjoying it seems being surrounded by people, but without wanting any intimacy or real lasting connection with them. Something expressed neatly in one vignette:

"In Bed

This evening as I read in bed I hear the roar of cars that speed down the road beneath my apartment. And the fact of their passing makes me aware of my own stillness. I can only fall asleep when I hear them. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, always at the same time, it’s the absolute silence that interrupts my sleep. That’s the hour when there’s not a car on the road, when no one needs to get anywhere. My sleep grows lighter and lighter and then it abandons me entirely. I wait until someone, anyone, turns up on the road. The thoughts that come to roost in my head in those moments are always the gloomiest, also the most precise. That silence, combined with the black sky, takes hold over me until the first light returns and dispels those thoughts, until I hear the presence of lives passing by along the road below me."

As Roman Clodia's review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3855003171) points out the effect is rather like a lesser version of Rachel Cusk's Faye from her trilogy, and the novel felt oddly unsatisfying although it came together more powerfully at the end, as the narrator looks to leave the city, and it also becomes clear how her personality is a result of her father and mother's respective temperaments and their troubled family relationship.

As with the other three novels of the author I've read, 3 stars

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

Set in Italy, this is another iteration of the relatively new form: the novella in flash. An Italian woman lives a solitary life after being an only child with a tempestuous relationship with her mother and a distant, passive father.

There are a few strange phrases and idioms but I suspect they're American English rather than oddly-translated Italian. Jhumpa Lahiri has created this novella out of the main character's detailed observations of herself and of others, as if she is at one remove from her own life, It's introspective and rather melancholy but the ending leaves open the possibility of change.

I enjoyed this book - it's short but packs a punch.

I love Jhumpa Lahiri's writing and this book was no exception. Gorgeous prose that really swept you up. Loved it.

Whereabouts is written like a diary with short chapters named after locations - The Bar, On The Train, In My Head etc. The narrator, a middle aged single woman, is not named but it feels as if you are included in her life through the narrative. Is she lonely? Does she feel she has underachieved? We don’t know, but we can make our own mind as the narrator tells us, ‘Solitude: it's become my trade. As it requires a certain discipline, it's a condition I try to perfect. And yet it plagues me, it weighs on me in spite of my knowing it so well.’ She is thoughtful, and suffers from what she calls a "dull slothfulness" that ALL of us can relate to.
An interesting read which I would recommend, although as there is no ‘story’ as such, not for everyone.

"I've never stayed still, I've always been moving, that's all I've ever been doing. Always waiting either to get somewhere or to come back. Or to escape."

This is a beautiful novella, written in various saynètes around various themes - at the supermarket, at the shop, at the nail salon, at the hotel. They tell of the solitude of an affluent middle-aged woman. Most revolve, one way or another, around ageing, being alone, mostly enjoying that solitude but not being completely sure. She is an observer - of the life around her, and of her own life. The tone is detached, the writing clean and precise, and read nearly like a diary of sorts; I first discovered Jhumpa Lahiri's writing with 'An Interpreter of Maladies' and she has evolved in terms of settings - going for a single woman in her late forties rather than young couples and younger women - but the writing remains the same, personal, unburdened, talking about transitions and moves. I really loved it.

Written in Italian first and translated in English by Jhumpa Lahiri herself, this book, in a simple but beautiful way, shows the life of a woman in an unmentioned town. We live with her for a short amount of time, finding out her daily routine and learning about her past and her dreams for the future.

I found it very enjoyable and the perfect read after a long day of working from home.

Reading Whereabouts felt very much like opening the pages of a slightly seachanged Dorthe Nors. A woman both at home and out of place watches the ease and discomforts of others’ lives as if she herself is untouched and yet every day, every moment is an exercise in overcoming disappointment. She does not have the perfect job, or a partner. She has never lived anywhere else. She remains the loyal friend whose passion is somehow never fully engaged. She has freedom but does not use it.

The writing is elegant, quietly sharp. Its blade has slipped between your skin before you even notice.

For some reason, for me, the overwhelming image left by the book is a small shrine to a dead son, pressed against a wall half way up a hillside. A road snakes up past the path and it is along this path that she occasionally bumps into a man she finds attractive who is married to a friend of hers. A crackle of desire hums between them but is never explored. The shrine stands for all she has lost without ever having had it to begin with. She hovers, for me, at the side of that road, on that hill, near the wall, neither fully up or nor down, watching a potential lover walk past her for the sake of propriety, for fear of consequence.

It’s a beautiful, meditative piece of writing that so carefully expresses what it can be to be a woman of a certain age without her own family, still somehow unrooted to the world around her, living anywhereabouts. Out in April this year, put it in your wish list.

So, this is my second try at Lahiri (after I DNF'd her [book:Interpreter of Maladies|5439]) and I have to conclude that she's not a writer for me. Her prose has the kind of exacting tone that I often like but this pared back set of vignettes almost feels like a parody of the voice of [author:Rachel Cusk|46051]'s Fay from her [book:Outline|21400742] trilogy, but without the experimental innovation or the interest. This also reminded me of Deborah Levy but without the 'grab' factor or Levy's bursts of sardonic humour, with a bit of [author:Katie Kitamura|2808688]'s intense navel-gazing in [book:A Separation|30407998].

There are themes of rootlessness and loneliness, of alienation and lack of connection, and a trend towards movement after stasis as the text progresses but whether that's towards change or just another temporary resting place is unclear. There are mentions of a troubled mother-daughter relationship, of a broken love affair, of potential ungrabbed and unachieved. The unnamed narrator acknowledges that she keeps aloof from her work colleagues and that they might perceive her as 'prickly, unpleasant' but to acknowledge is enough for her, she's not interested in correcting or reaching out.

The prose style is peaceful, restrained, moderate, unhurried - it never changes pace and is straightforward to read. I don't know - this just feels underwhelming to me, a sort of generic version of contemporary 'literary women's writing' that never engaged or connected with me - instantly forgettable, in my case, I'm afraid.