‘Sexy’ by Jhumpa Lahiri

Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri, 1998

The magic trick:

Looking at an extramarital affair with an eye on cultural perceptions (and ignorance)

After an opening quartet of stories possibly unmatched in the history of short story collections, I’d argue that the fifth entry, “Sexy,” in Interpreter Of Maladies is the first sign of slippage. We should all pray that our “slippage” is this good, of course. It’s a good story! It’s just not otherworldly great like those first four in the collection.

“Sexy” is the story of an extramarital affair in Boston between a (presumably) white woman and a married Indian man. The details of their relationship and even her character growth were of minimal interest to me. What is fascinating here is the cultural considerations. She is very naïve – a young transplant from white bread Michigan. Though it never comes right out and says anything too obvious, the story has some interesting things to say about people’s perceptions of their own cultural identity and that of others.

And that’s quite a trick on Lahiri’s part.

The selection:

Apart from Laxmi and Dev, the only Indians whom Miranda had known were a family in the neighborhood where she’d grown up, named the Dixits. Much to the amusement of the neighborhood children, including Miranda, but not including the Dixit children, Mr. Dixit would jog each evening long the flat winding streets of their development in his everyday shirt and trousers, his only concession to athletic apparel a pair of cheap Keds. Every weekend, the family – mother, father, two boys, and a girl – piled into their car and went away, to where nobody knew. The fathers complained that Mr. Dixit did not fertilize his lawn properly, did not rake his leaves on time, and agreed that the Dixits’ house, the only one with vinyl siding, detracted from the neighborhood’s charm. The mothers never invited Mrs. Dixit to join them around the Armstrongs’ swimming pool. Waiting for the school bus with the Dixit children standing to one side, the other children would say “The Dixits eat shit,” under their breath, and then burst into laughter.

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