Sexy

Although born in London, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rhode Island when she was three and has lived in the United States for the better part of her life. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Lahiri dramatizes in much of her work the experiences of Indian immigrants. In her early work, such as the short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies, the focus is on first generation Indian Americans; in her later work she focuses more on the experiences of second- and third-generation Indian Americans. In all of her work she presents a nuanced picture of the competing forces that are a core feature of the immigrant experience—a desire to maintain the culture and traditions of one’s native culture and a desire to assimilate into the culture of one’s adopted country. Lahiri’s first published work, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her next work was the highly regarded novel The Namesake (2003), based, like much of her work, on personal and family history. Lahiri’s other work includes a second short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth (2008), and two novels, The Lowland (2018) and Whereabouts (2021). Lahiri wrote Whereabouts in Italian, following her interest in the Italian language and culture, an interest accompanied by a move to Italy with her family in 2012. Lahiri currently teaches creative writing at Barnard College and is actively involved with several arts-based organizations, including the PEN American Center.

“Sexy” is set in Boston, presumably in the 1990s. Although the story doesn’t directly engage with any specific historical events, it’s worth noting that the 1990s were a decade in which social and cultural norms surrounding marriage and infidelity were continuing to shift. The 1960s and 1970s saw higher divorce rates than ever before in the 20th century, and though these rates leveled off somewhat in the 1990s, it was no longer culturally unheard of for couples to split up or end their marriages completely. What’s more, the idea of having more than one sexual partner became increasingly acceptable in the 1990s and beyond. In “Sexy,” however, Dev’s affair with Miranda is secretive, not something he has agreed on with his wife. To that end, a Gallup poll in 2001—two years after the publication of “Sexy”—found that 91% of Americans still thought extramarital affairs were always or almost always wrong. This prevailing sentiment perhaps informs Miranda’s decision at the end of the story to end her affair with Dev after reflecting on how their relationship might end up impacting his family.

Lahiri’s style, voice, and interest in the short story form—exemplified by the short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies—can be readily compared to such masters of the short story form as Anton Chekov, Alice Munro, and William Trevor, writers with whom she has been associated. Writers working in this vein are typically concerned with dramatizing ordinary but humanizing experiences such as love, heartbreak, friendship, disillusionment, and the challenges of finding purpose and meaning in life. Lahiri’s work can also be likened to writers such as Amy Tan who dramatize the immigrant experience in postwar America. For such writers, identity is always conflicted, never a given. While Amy Tan in such works as The Joy Luck Club focuses on the experience of Chinese Americans, Lahiri is concerned in such works as The Interpreter of Maladies with the experience of Indian Americans.