LUCKY GIRLS by Nell Freudenberger (2003)

I picked this collection of stories up from a remainder table while waiting for a film to start. It's Freudenberger's first book and reflects personal experiences she had living as a white woman in India and south-east Asia. Each story finds an outsider protagonist more at home away from home. Her style reminds me of Richard Ford's writing: spare, muscular prose. Both writers explore the contemporary human condition and are especially atuned to the nuances in intimate relationships between men and women.