Year's End

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Year's End is a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was published in the December 24, 2007 edition of The New Yorker.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, India

15 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.

Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.

Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.

In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.

In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

boilerplate mission statement intro:

for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!

since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which - let’s be honest - is gonna serve you better anyway.

HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!

links to all stories read in previous years' calendars can be found at the end of these reviews, in case you are a person who likes to read stories for free:

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send 'em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!

DECEMBER 13

“I was tired, Kaushik,” he said. “Tired of coming home to an empty house every night.”

I didn’t know which was worse—the idea of my father’s remarrying for love or of his actively seeking out a stranger for companionship. My parents had had an arranged marriage, but there was a touch of romance about it, too, my father seeing my mother for the first time at a wedding and being so attracted that he had asked, the following week, for her hand. They had always been affectionate with each other, but it wasn’t until her illness that he seemed fully, recklessly, to fall in love with her, so that I was witness to a courtship that ought to have faded before I was born. 

okay, i'm cheating a little bit and doubling up, having missed yesterday's short story read because of xmas shopping and exhaustion and because i am VERY BAD! and in the interests of trying not to repeat my being VERY BAD and missing tonight's short story read, leading me down the thorny path of snowballing failure, i am going to be even briefer than usual with this "review."

jhumpa lahiri is amazing at the short story form. i am a late bloomer in my appreciation of short stories, but Interpreter of Maladies was one of the first books that made me think, "hmmmmm, maybe short stories aren't so bad after all!" this particular story is all win - it's sad and real and as unpretty and messy as families are; not overdramatized for art nor romanticized for heart.

fantastic story and an ACTUAL christmas story, so have yourself a merry little christmas and check it out! while i scurry to fit another one in before i pass out. LGM!

read it for yourself here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

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come to my blog!

[jo-booksy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synd att den var så kort. Hade gärna läst en hel roman.

[Nina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Volim Džumpine rečenice, ali ovo je bilo vrlo prosečno.

[Sreeparnaa Chaudhury · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole world including your father can feel like an enemy when you lose your mother and then "informed" by your father of his remarriage to a much younger woman. It could make your chest hurt for months and years, and the unrelenting grief mixed with anger of having to imagine the other woman under the same blanket lying beside your father and using your mother's favourite crockery could feel like your insides being pierced with a needle, if not worse. But how can you go on living with a closed heart? You have to get better and for that to happen, you've to open your heart and in the process, you come to realise that everyone else is damaged and just as vulnerable to grief and loss as you. You realise you cannot go on escaping from your wounds but dress them in order for them to heal. And perhaps, you also realise that time doesn't completely heal the wound caused by the death of a loved one, but it does lessen the sting of it. If you read anything at all this week, read Jhumpa Lahiri's short story "Year's End". You'll do yourself a favor. 4 out of 5 stars from me.

[Jenifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short story from the New Yorker. I thought this was truly evocative of time and place and culture. How lives wash up against each other and ebb sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. I liked how the boy, Kaushik, knew so immediately what his step-sisters were going through, because he had been through the same. I was sad that the sadness in their family was never healed, but I think that's just such a common thing - baggage that we carry with us that keeps us from enjoying the relationships that we could, keeps us from loving with open and warm hearts, keeps us living with pain.

Very nice, real-life story.

[Tessa Adzemovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites by Jhumpa... a poignant, though painful, piece on the meaning of family and difficult relationships

[Beth Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this short story! Kaushik, a college student, is dumbfounded when his father marries a younger woman with two small girls a few years after his mother's death. He goes home for winter break, and he's now a guest in his own home, with the two girls taking over his old room, memories of his mother coming back to him, and a new woman there replacing his mother.

Set over the winter break, Kaushik is easy to identify with, and your heart hurts for him.

[Lois · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story evocatively captures a New England winter, and the struggle of a young man to adapt to the new family his father has created after the death of the wife and mother. How does life go on after loss, and what does recovery mean?

[Yvette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite sad. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing, rather captivating.

[Kryssa Jacynth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice short story about grief and acceptance. Beautifully written with clear details that helped bring the story to life.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this story. It was kind of sad for Christmastime, but it was realistic. You learn a family secret about the Protagonist and it's contemplative. I thought it was a memoir, but it's about a young man and the author is a woman so it's contemporary fiction. But, I didn't find out it wasn't biographical until after I had finished reading it and looked up the author.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

La pérdida de un ser querido acarrea la pérdida del sentido de la familia para un joven y su padre debido a su incapacidad para apoyarse emocionalmente.
La necesidad de enfrentar el dolor, cerrar heridas y encontrar la manera de continuar viviendo.

Se puede leer aqui

[vaishnave]

reading for class: meh.

reading a jhumpa lahiri short story over the course of 2 weeks, out loud, with a class, and having class discussions: easy, child's play, completely doable, entirely enjoyable. 10/10 experience, highly recommend.

[Sara]

Itsnot healing end story.full of lose .lose the mother maybe i will do the same like our h.but its bad to take the angry in inosent ont esp tow girly.its life like full of love and memory full of pain and lose.

[Shene · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one else can write about the loneliness that inhabits the spaces within a family like Jhumpa. This story will haunt me for a long time.

Read this one here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kaushik's father is an ass.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was a four, but my enjoyment only a three due to my own funk or that I had to pause and pick it up again.

[Jagannath Jha]

How can buy

[Catherine O'neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good, it broke my heart.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phenomenal story of grief.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second to last story from Lahiri’s book “Unaccustomed Earth.” I highly recommend reading all 3 of the “Hema and Kaushik” stories.

[Ziba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relatable protagonist. Taught me that I too would hate having a step-family and should stop provoking my parents for a divorce

[Flo R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the writing, especially the way each scene was captured effortlessly enough to imagine its scents, sounds and each character's emotions. As much as I would've preferred a different direction, its plain and unembellished ending allowed to appreciate the story so much more.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another novella from the New Yorker. Quite good, but not my favorite.

[Ɛɾιɳ ẞҽҽ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...