Notes on Extinction Book

Will Mendelsohn is a modern-day Charles Darwin whose first book has made him wealthy. In order to begin his magnum opus, a massive work on extinction, he sets off on a worldwide research trip. He makes a special visit to Assam, a state in northeast India, so he can spend time with his mother's friend Mim, a Holocaust survivor in frail health. But once he meets Mim's enigmatic neighbor, a married expatriate screenwriter named Grace Tagore, Will's brief stop turns into an extended stay. As he and Grace are drawn together by their haunted pasts into a transformative affair, Assam erupts in political turmoil, setting off an irrevocable chain of events that forever alters their lives.

Library Journal

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 Cahners Business Information.