It’s not unusual for a writer to uproot herself and relocate to another country, but Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri’s move to Italy in 2012 isn’t a typical case. Lahiri had become infatuated with Italian and moved to Rome to seek to master the language. She described that effort in her 2016 book, IN OTHER WORDS, written in Italian and translated by Elena Ferrante’s translator, Ann Goldstein.

And now, in a truly impressive accomplishment, she’s written her first novel in Italian and translated it into English herself. The result is WHEREABOUTS, a pensive, eloquent meditation on a solitary life that would be beautiful in any language.

"...a pensive, eloquent meditation on a solitary life that would be beautiful in any language.... WHEREABOUTS is a brief novel, fewer than 160 pages, yet it demands to be read slowly, sipped like a fine wine rather than gulped."

IN OTHER WORDS contained a pair of short stories that Lahiri says touched on what she considers the themes of her work --- “identity, alienation, belonging” --- and those same themes suffuse this book. Told in a collection of concise vignettes, most fewer than five pages, Lahiri’s novel follows its unidentified female narrator --- an unmarried teacher in her mid-40s --- through most of a year, as she navigates the activities of her daily life in an unnamed Italian city that feels like Rome.

There are visits to coffee bars, trips to her favorite stationery store, and dinners with friends, all described with keen intelligence. She’s admittedly “moody,” but never an unpleasant companion because of her undeniable gift for observation of both her outer and inner worlds, one that’s been cultivated by an ability to stand at a remove from life. “Solitude: it’s become my trade,” she remarks, admitting that “it plagues me, it weighs on me in spite of knowing it so well,” even as she appreciates the “small pleasures my solitude affords me.”

Though she never has been married and lives alone, the narrator’s life has not been without its romantic entanglements, including what she says are ones with her share of married men. The principal relationship --- five years with a man she admits she “adored” despite the fact that he was “puerile and full of complaints” --- ends abruptly and in a most unexpected way. “And yet, even as my life shattered in pieces,” she recalls, “I felt as if I were finally coming up for air.”

Another potential relationship --- with the partner of one of her friends --- teeters on the edge of becoming more than a “chaste, fleeting bond.” She’s frank about her prospects of finding love in mid-life. While observing a lone woman in a doctor’s office, she realizes that “in twenty years, when I happen to be in a waiting room like this one for some reason or other, I won’t have anyone sitting beside me, either.”

The narrator repeatedly returns to thoughts of her parents, wondering why, even on a vacation years later, they’re still “nipping at my heels.” She’s the only child of a taciturn father whose stoicism didn’t impede his passion for theater, and a mercurial mother whose mismatch helped define her “squandered youth.”

Especially moving is her account of her father’s sudden illness that ended the hope of a long-planned childhood birthday trip across the border to see a play with him. “I mourned those wasted tickets and that trip never taken,” she says, addressing her deceased father, “more than I mourned for you.” Equally poignant is a New Year’s Day visit to her mother in a distant town, as she’s about to embark on a yearlong fellowship that will allow her a chance to “push past the barrier of my life.” It’s an encounter that has the feel of finality even as neither participant acknowledges that fact.

Though it’s obviously impossible to pass critical judgment on the quality of the novel’s original Italian prose, there’s no hesitation when it comes to assessing its beauty in English. Early in the story, for example, the narrator describes standing on a bridge watching passing pedestrians, their shadows reminding her of “skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another.” In August, her neighborhood “wastes away like an old woman who was once a stunning beauty before shutting down completely.” Small jewels like these linger in the mind.

WHEREABOUTS is a brief novel, fewer than 160 pages, yet it demands to be read slowly, sipped like a fine wine rather than gulped. In part, that’s due to its unusual structure, but it’s no less true because of the unembellished beauty of Lahiri’s writing and a depth of insight evident on every page. Though Jhumpa Lahiri has been back in the United States for several years, one can only hope that the affection she’s found for Italian that has so invigorated her will remain undiminished.