Indian American Mukherjee, whose novels never fail to fascinate, now offers the enigmatic tale of Debby DiMartino, adopted as a baby from an Indian orphanage by an Italian American family in upstate New York. All she knows of her bio-parents is that her father was Asian and her mother, listed on the records as Baby Clear Water Iris-Daughter, a California hippy of the 60s on the Asian Path of Enlightenment. On one level this is a quest novel, which, like so many Indian American novels, centers around the protagonist's search for her roots, in this case her biological parents. But it is much more than a quest. Mukherjee is trying to say something about America, especially the now dominant age group (the "baby boomers") who came of age in the 1960s. Unfortunately, she delivers her message in a fantastical, apocalyptic narrative that puzzles more than illuminates. Consider: at age 23, with a degree in marketing and destined for a career in Manhattan, Debby suddenly decides to head to San Francisco to find bio mom. On a whim she changes her name to Devi, who we know from the prologue is a destructive Indian goddess. Debby/Devi ends up living in her car in the Haight Ashbury district surrounded by a brain-fried Vietnam vet and other stereotypical street types, but is soon involved in a relationship with the handsome, forty-something film producer, Ham Cohan. Devi is obsessed with trying to understand the boomer generation which she sees as either used and burned out like the vet or like Ham and his friends - ex-Berkeley protesters, world travelers and pleasure seekers of the 60s who now seem to have formed an elite circle that no one can crack who has not shared their experience. What springs (not grows) out of this obsession, however, is an anger that develops into full-blown psychosis. An earlier episode involving a relationship between Debby and a wealthy Asian hints at a crack in Debby's psyche, but nothing prepares us for the rage. What the hell happened to this nice girl from Schenectady? Why is she so pissed off? These are important questions as the novel spirals off into surreal territory with bizarre murders and preposterous coincidences and episodes that end in fiery apocalypse. Leave It To Me, better titled Devi Does San Francisco, is an entertaining read, though clearly Mukherjee is after more. But the rich potential is never realized, as the novel suffers from its many stereotypes, Debby/Devi's unconvincing rage, and, to me at least, the author's wholly unaccountable intent. J.A.

Here we have another young Indian woman's quest. This time the setting is India during the 1960s and the quest concerns the young girl-maturing-to-woman's search for her father and, more importantly, an understanding of her disturbed mother, who has had one husband and two lovers and a daughter by each. Our protagonist, Sonil, "a name with no definite roots," is the daughter of one of the lovers, an American whom she has never met but always pictured as a "cowboy." Sonil's beautiful mother and grandmother live on the paradise island of Pi. Because her mother rarely talks, virtually ignoring her daughters while dressing flamboyantly and strutting about town or lounging at home and being catered to by her mother, Sonil was sent off to the mainland to be brought up by her guardian aunts in Madras. She periodically spends time at Pi, however, and at age 15 she returns for a long stay due to health problems which hopefully the island can cure. She hopes as well to unlock the mystery that is her mother, but this, alas, is never resolved in any meaningful or satisfactory way. Of more interest is 15-year-old Sonil's secret love affair with a 30-year-old American on the island, an affair that comes to an end when his mother moves to Pi, joins an ashram, and "threatens his space," at which point he leaves for Ethiopia. Supposedly, this sobering experience has helped young Sonil come to a better understanding of herself and, by extension, her mother. As for Dad, Sonil eventually meets up with him in the States and a bit more of her parents' history is revealed, but precious little besides the obvious ever develops. Sonil concludes: "I had to stop trying to figure them out . . . I had thought for so long that they defined me, that I would be a repetition of them. I had thought inheritance was inescapable. It is, but not in ways I had imagined." Author Ganesan offers some exquisite descriptive passages, but the inheritance theme around which the novel is structured is hardly memorable. J.A.

Widower Leonard Schiller, novelist and old-school, New York intellectual, is a physically wrecked 72-year-old, survivor of two massive heart attacks and victim of many of the ailments of the aged. He has produced four novels in his lifetime, all out of print, and with the remainder of his time he wishes only to complete his fifth and last novel. His 39-year-old, divorced daughter, Ariel, is hardly the intellectual that he or his friends are: she watches Oprah, teaches aerobics, and is obsessed with her ever-ticking biological time clock. Despite these vast differences father and daughter have a warm and mutually supportive relationship. Then, into his life walks the vivacious and arresting 24 year-old Heather Wolfe, a bright graduate student who has decided to devote her thesis (and possibly a book) to the minor novelist whom she fantasizes resurrecting to the stature of Faulkner. Through a calculating manipulation, involving discreet flirtation and "half-true" words of flattery and adulation, she convinces the aging Schiller, against his better judgment, to cooperate with her project. He is no fool, but neither is he immune from the young girl's charm and much to his distress he soon becomes enamored of her. Daughter Ariel is flumoxed by Heather's interest (sexual as well?) in her physically unappealing, fat and bald father. The unfolding story of these three decidedly distinct personalities and generations is a beautifully rendered and tender examination of art, love, youth and age. The old gentleman, Schiller, musing on his life and art, is a memorable character from whom all generations have much to learn, but he is not without faults (vanity, jealousy) which make him all the more endearing. Unfortunately, the relationship between Schiller and Heather plays itself out three-fourths of the way through and the focus on the mundane Ariel at the end is of lesser interest, but there is much to delight in this exquisite second novel by Dissent editor Morton, author of The Dylanist. J.A.

If, like me, you've missed Toni Morrison since her last offering (Jazz, 1992) this latest comes as very welcome event. Set in the early 70s in the all black town of Ruby, Oklahoma, where skin tone serves as class distinction with "light-skinned colored people" at the bottom and "8-rock ones" (like the darkest strata of coal) at the top, Morrison explores the theme of racial prejudice within the black community. The central image is the Oven, an iron and brick oven which the founding fathers built way back when to serve the entire community and which has been dismantled and rebuilt as the community has relocated over the years. 1974 sees the Oven surrounded by restless black youth, who pose unwanted questions and serve to threaten the town's highly conservative status quo. And Ruby has more problems: outside town a ways is an old house known as the Convent, which it once was, but which now houses four vagrant women who have ended up there by chance and circumstance to be taken in by the one permanent resident, Consolata, who was once the attendant to the Reverend Mother during its days as an actual convent. The novel begins: "They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." It is a powerful, dark and chilling beginning, which breaks off to tell the individual tales of the vagrant women and the history of Ruby while simultaneously relaying the town's present-day (1974-75) events, which at first ooze and seethe and then explode into the violent action we know is coming as nine men from Ruby head off to the Convent (where supposedly "satanic rituals" are being held) with guns and rope.

Paradise is classic Toni Morrison: a novel which gives us deep insight into a black community, mixing elements of everyday reality with dreams, visions and memories, along with the magic realism we have come to expect which allows women to talk to their dead babies and commune with unreal people. Morrison has focused on an era which revolves around the themes of civil rights, Vietnam, youth counter-culture and generational differences; and, in dealing with these themes she tries to find resolution and does so. The storytelling is wholly engaging and its exquisite style, tone and abundantly rich characterization is there as always. But I harbor some reservations about the ending. The denouement is entirely too "magically" pat (and patently Morrison); these very real conflicting issues continue to haunt America and real resolution is evaded for a surreal flight of fancy, a tactic which works marvelously well in Song of Solomon, for example, but which seems merely an evasive tactic here. But this a quibble, and one open to much discussion. Paradise is must read for all lovers of Toni Morrison. J.A.

Eucalyptus by Murray Bail due out in 1998

Eucalyptus is a 200 page allegory of sorts. Set in Australia, the principal story is one of a man, Holland, who has planted his newly-acquired land with every known type of Eucalyptus tree. The Eucalyptus is his passion. Holland's wife is deceased and he is left to bring up his daughter, Ellen, a "speckled" beauty, whose story really begins at age 19 when her father offers her hand in marriage to the first man who can correctly name every variety of Eucalyptus on his property. Many try, many fail. Then comes the Eucalyptus expert, Mr. Cave, a well-dressed man about the father's age. He begins roaming the paddocks with Holland, engaging in casual conversation while offhandedly naming the trees. As there are over 500 varieties, it takes some time. Meanwhile Ellen, who seems to spend most of her time around the trees, runs across a slightly disheveled stranger near her age, who suddenly appears by a tree and begins to tell her stories over a period of many days as he moves from tree to tree. Much of the narrative is taken up with these stories, which have no obvious link except that they often deal with characters who begin their lives in another country and end up in Australia. As the stories unfold, Holland and Mr. Cave go about their business whereby Cave slowly and blithely eases his way toward the goal that is Ellen. And that is as much as can be said without giving up the game . This is a delightful tale told by an engaging narrator, who steps back now and again to interject thoughts on such things as the likeness between paragraphs and eucalyptus paddocks. It's all a richly ambiguous puzzle in which the shimmering, 500-plus varieties of Eucalyptus, indigenous only to Australia, curiously reflect, among other things, the select and myriad inhabitants of the land down under. J.A.

For tongue-in-cheek crime noir you can't get much better than this first novel by U.S. writer Jason Starr. Told in the first person by 31-year-old Bill Moss, the story begins as he is ending his second year in the dead end, entry-level job of telemarketing. Bill lives in New York with his girlfriend who has a steady job and is waiting for Bill to regain his status (and salary) in his field of advertising where he was doing well until he lost his job as marketing vice-president at a prestigious company. The relationship is strained and the pressure mounts on Bill, especially when he is told he is about to be fired because a little investigation uncovered that he had previously been fired for sexual harassment, a fact he omitted on his resume. Before this Bill acted on a fantasy and picked up a streetwalker whom he roughed up for reasons that are not clear. What is clear, however, is that Bill is becoming increasingly unhinged. And, then, the murders begin. This is a thriller that keeps you turning the pages and laughing all the while. The narrator's deadpan delivery is superb; whether he's relaying domestic and office scenarios or murder plans, the tone is the same. Bill is pretty much the embodiment of everything despicably male (or either gender for that matter): egocentric, manipulative, servile and ingratiating, spiteful and small-minded, and finally all-out psychotic. But he can be kind of OK, too. Kind of. He comes across at first as a down-on-his-luck guy who's understandably moody and a bit unstable and the other traits grow out of this sour predicament. The book opens with Bill trying to ask a woman on the subway to give him more room which results in his getting beat up. Then all the job problems. There's never a point when the reader doesn't think if this guy could just secure a job maybe everything'd be OK. Good characterization, good plotting with a zinger of an ending, this is a rollicking good read that plays with the genre of crime noir and ultimately presents some astute observations about an all-too-familiar looking ethically skewered world. J.A.

The Underground Man by Mick Jackson : Picador : U.K. 1997

There once was a real life William John Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, the fifth Duke of Portland (1800-79), who is remembered for the vast excavations he carried out on his family estate in Nottinghamshire. The author presents a fictional portrait of the eccentric Duke, told primarily by way of the Duke's journal, but occasionally accompanied by the musings of other minor characters on or around the estate. The Duke is given to meditations on a variety of subjects, which indeed comprise the bulk of the novel. He ponders over the workings of an apple tree, the proliferation of bones in the world, especially whale bones, the likelihood of the same man possessing the same coin twice, and such like. As for the raison d'être behind the amazing tunnels (one big enough for two carriages to pass each other) we are only offered this by the engineer: "Most of us, at some time, have peculiar ideas we'd like to carry out but have not the money to put them in place. That was not the case with the Duke." The Duke's partial senility and extreme eccentricity take a turn toward utter madness in the novel's startling and gruesome denouement, which I dare not disclose. Suffice it to say the Duke's childlike meditations spawned by his relentless curiosity make for a fascinating read. Shortlisted for the Booker Award (a dubious honor this year if one follows the line of UK critics), I heartily recommend this original and inventive first novel written in a superbly rich and fresh prose style that dazzles from beginning to end. J.A.