Lahiri's New Yorker story - or is it first section of a novel?

As I thought it might, Jhumpa Lahiri's long story in current New Yorker, fiction issue, does make its way to the U.S., but, unike almost all of her fiction, it's not a story about the immigrant experience, esp as lived by the more assimilated 2nd generation - in Brotherly Love (spoilers coming) the younger brother, U., dies as a result of his political activities and older but much more conservative and self-effacing brother, C., comes home to Calcutta from his post as a grad student in the U.S. Part of C's mission is to learn exactly how (and why) U. died - he knows it was some kind of police action, and it takes him some time to unearth the details from the unforthcoming witnesses, but he does learn that U. was killed, assassinated actually, by the police and that his young wife more or less was forced to give him up. The drama of the story centers on U's fascination with the wife, whom the family does not really accept - she's too leftist, she was not an "arranged" bride and therefore the marriage is an insult to the entire social structure, and perhaps she is of a "lower" caste, though this is never exactly clear. In any case, to little surprise, at end of story she agrees to marry the older brother, C., who will raise her half-orphaned child, his nephew or niece and stepchild. Have to wonder whether this long piece is actually the opening section of a novel in progress (or soon to be in print, as is so often the NYer way), as I think The Namesake also debuted with its first sections in the NYer - this work may follow the same pattern, as it would seem that the new couple cannot stay in Calcutta and C. will want to return to his studies in the U.S. - like the namesake, this could be a story of the assimilated/assimilating 2nd-gen Indian immigrants, but beginning with a back story that explains the family's complex origins and gives a glimpse of the socially stratified world they have left behind. I have to say I was pleased to see Lahiri use Rhode Island as an explicit setting - she was raised (here) in Rhode Island, and R.I plays a recognizable role in some of her fiction, but I think - I could be wrong - that she has never id'd R.I. specifically, that most of her specific place names are in Cambridge (area) or NYC. Welcome home, Jhumpa!