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Mukherjee, Bharati : Leave It To Me

Alfred A. Knopf, New York City, NY, 1997

ISBN 0679434275

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 240 pages. The author's fifth novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Bharati Mukherjee's "Leave It To Me". Her fifth novel. "Uncontrolled violence has a prominent place in Mukherjee's novel, as it does in much of her writing. The main character and narrator, Debby DiMartino, was born in India to a California flower child and a Eurasian serial killer. Having been adopted by an Italian-American family in New Jersey, Debby, now in her twenties, begins to investigate her origins. She changes her name to Devi after seeing it on a vanity license plate, but never learns that she has taken the name of a Hindu deity. Devi manifests her ancient namesake's fierce and destructive nature and also exemplifies the morally shallow, me-centered prototype of the present day. She alone survives the devastation she causes by trying to identify her biological parents. A deeply disturbing book" (Rebecca A. Stuhr). It is not an exaggeration to say that Mukherjee is the crucial "figure in the middle", that is to say, the central figure who continues and transmutes the work of the pioneering R. K. Narayan, and helps smooth the way for the present generation of young Indian writers in English like Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Mukherjee not only anticipates but fully embodies many of their concerns, and remains an influential force in immigrant-American literature. An absolute "must-have" title for Bharati Mukherjee collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Bharati Mukherjee. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1989 for "The Middleman And Other Stories". One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER BHARATI MUKHERJEE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0679434275.

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