Notes on Extinction - Hardcover

Deaner, Janice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052594415X ISBN 13: 9780525944157

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 2001

Synopsis

Embarking on a worldwide research trip after his first book on extinction becomes a raging success, Will Mendelsohn stops in Assam, India to visit his mother's friend Mim, an ailing Holocaust survivor, and finds himself drawn to Mim's mysterious neighbor, Grace Tagor, a married expatriate screenwriter, in a riveting novel of love, self-discovery, and friendship.

About this title

About the Author

Janice Deaner, an award-winning filmmaker, is the author of Where Blue Begins, The Body Spoken, and Notes on Extinction. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

*Starred Review* The hero of Deaner's extraordinarily controlled and dramatic third novel, Will Mendelsohn, the son of Holocaust survivors, has been working on his magnum opus on world extinction for 10 years when a fire destroys his notes, manuscript, and marriage. In shock, Will turns to fieldwork and travels to disparate places, including India, where he stays with Mim, the widow of a tea grower. She and his mother became friends in a Nazi concentration camp, where they were both tortured. He and Mim grow close, but it is a blond, ice-eyed woman named Grace, married to an Indian neighbor and haunted by her own abusive past, who inspires Will to linger. Their intense affair is complicated by the eruption of political unrest and terrorist violence. Like Mim and his mother, Will is forced to experience the dark side of existence, a terrifying rite of passage that recalibrates his vision of the insistence of life even in the direst circumstances. Deaner's mesmerizing tale of loss and recovery explores the eroticism of pain with unflinching precision and provocative insight almost on a par with Somerset Maugham, Elizabeth Bowen, and Michael Ondaatje. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

This striking third novel by Deaner (The Body Spoken) begins when Will Mendelsohn's wife of 20 years accidentally starts a fire that destroys his life's work, a manuscript on extinct species. They separate, and Will, alone and 40, decides to take a research trip to study extinction. In time, he settles in Assam, India, with Mim, his mother's friend from a Nazi concentration camp. Will meets Stella, a boyish lesbian; her friend, Grace Tagore; and Grace's dying Indian husband. An immediate attraction between Will and Grace leads to an affair, and Will, falling deeply in love for the first time in his life, finds the three women becoming his surrogate family: Mim as mother, Grace as lover/wife, and Stella as daughter. Stella, involved with Indian rebels, embroils Will in events that bring him great physical and emotional suffering and, ultimately, transformation. Complex yet intriguing, this is good storytelling with sometimes unexpected phrases that make one pause and think. Recommended for all public libraries. Cheryl L. Conway, Univ. of Arkansas Lib., Fayetteville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052594415X
• ISBN 13: 9780525944157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240