In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

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In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton, 2009) is Daniyal Mueenuddin's debut collection, a set of eight linked stories set mainly in Pakistan. Among other things, the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award finalist, and a New York Times bestseller.

This is a pretty phenomenal collection overall, and it is difficult to single out individual pieces, but my favorite stories were the bookends: "Nawabdin Electrician" and "A Spoiled Man."

He flourished on a signature capability, a technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the revolutions of electric meters, so cunningly done that his customers could specify to the hundred-rupee note the desired monthly savings.
--From "Nawabdin Electrician," pp. 13-28 in the paperback version, originally published in The New Yorker (August 27, 2007) and later in Best American Short Stories 2008.

There he stood at the stone gateway of the Harounis' weekend home above Islamabad, a small bowlegged man with a lopsided battered face. When the American wife's car drove up, turning off the Murree road, Rezak saluted, eyes straight ahead, not looking at her.
--From "A Spoiled Man," pp. 221-247, originally published in The New Yorker (September 15, 2008).

(If I absolutely had to choose a third, it would be "Our Lady of Paris," pp. 143-168, originally from Zoetrope: All Story, Volume 10, Number 3 (Fall 2006). Sohail and Helen had begun dating two years earlier, at Yale, where she was an undergraduate and he at the law school. After graduating the previous summer he had returned to his home in Pakistan, while she completed her senior year.)

However, the collection is really more than the sum of its parts. "A Spoiled Man" is incredible on its own, but every bit of the story, even of the title, is more nuanced and meaningful when read with the other stories. It was, I thought, a perfect ending to the book.

"Indulgence" by Susan Perabo

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My mother was thrilled to be dying of brain cancer after a lifetime of smoking. She had dodged the bullet of lung cancer after all, she triumphantly announced to me on the phone that summer afternoon. All those years my brothers and I had hassled her, lectured her, begged her, berated her (“Don’t you want to see your grandchildren graduate from college?”)—and for what? Her lungs were fine! . . .

"Indulgence," a short story by Susan Perabo, published in One Story, Issue Number 178 (May 3, 2013). The link has a sample of the story and a Q&A with Susan Perabo. (The editor's notes mention this, but I will, too: there are some spoilers in the Q&A.) This was a really poignant story.