Leave It to Me

by Bharati Mukherjee

Debby DiMartino: saved from death in infancy by Gray Nuns at an Indian desert outpost; adopted as a toddler by Manfred and Serena DiMartino of Schenectady, New York; coming of age an inherently exotic girl in an inherently American town, never sure if she was someone special or just a special kind of misfit. Now, at 23, she's decided that it's time to find out: time to track down her biological parents. She knows only the barest facts about them: her mother was a California flower child; her father, an 'Asian national' serving life in an Indian prison for murder. She knows that they were 'lousy people who'd considered me lousier still and who'd left me to be sniffed at by wild dogs, like a carcass in the mangy shade.' Her only inheritance from them is a literally haunting past ('white-hot sky and burnt-black leaves...star bursts of yearning'), but now she wants revenge too. 'When you inherit nothing, you are entitled to everything,' Debby says as she leaves home for San Francisco, where, if she can't find her mother, she suspects she can appropriate what she needs. Yet, once there, living the life of her newly named persona, Devi Dee ("Tenderloin prowler, all allure and strength and zero innocence'), she senses that she may have inherited more than she imagined: a legacy of shocking idea and impulse begins to reveal itself as Debby/Devi focuses her sights on the woman who may be her 'bio-mom,' or just a dangerously unprepared proxy.

Genres: Fiction, India, Adoption, Womens, Literature, Contemporary

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Bharati Mukherjee was an Indian-born award winning American writer who explored the internal culture clashes of her immigrant characters in the award-winning collection The Middleman and Other Stories and in novels like Jasmine and Desirable Daughters.

Ms. Mukherjee, a native of Calcutta, attended schools in England, Switzerland and India, earned advanced degrees in creative writing in the United States and lived for more than a decade in Canada, affording her a wealth of experience in the modern realities of multiculturalism.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and a master’s degree from the University of Baroda, in Gujarat, in 1961. After sending six handwritten stories to the University of Iowa, she was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied with Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily in her first year. She earned an M.F.A. in 1963 and a doctorate in comparative literature in 1969 at Iowa.

After years of short-term academic appointments, Ms. Mukherjee was hired in 1989 to teach postcolonial and world literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bharati Mukherjee died on Saturday, January 28, 2017 in Manhattan. She was 76.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was about halfway through this book when my wife found it in the, ahem, reading room and asked me how I was enjoying it.

"The narrative's sort of bubbling along well enough," I told her, "but by 120 pages in I feel I should have some idea of what the book's for."

The trouble is, now I've got to the end of it I'm still thinking the same thing. I was never bored as I read, and occasionally I chuckled, or savored some neat turn of phrase or piece of description, but I never felt I was part of an enterprise that was actually going anywhere. Now that I've finished the novel I learn that it's in some sense a skewed retelling of the Elektra myth (which I can see) with elements of the Deva myth (which I can't see because, mea culpa, I know nothing of the source legend).

The later stages of the tale are scarred by a couple of plot developments so outrageously improbable that at least the first one (for the second I didn't bother) had me scouring back through previous pages in case I'd missed/forgotten something that might justify it. Answer: nope.

I wish I could be a tad more positive about the novel beyond that it's an easy and overall pleasurable reading experience. It's as if Mukherjee has got everything there and everything right with the exception of a coherent plot to hold it all together. Oddly enough, this reaction does mean I'm quite likely to pick up another of Mukherjee's novels, just to see if I can tease out what makes her work tick.

[Chinook · Rating 2 out of 5]

It sounded very promising on the back, about an adopted girl who sets out to find her parents, a hippie mom and a Eurasian dad. There were some interesting descriptions about her trip from the Eastern US to California, driving across time zones a day at a time, and passing small towns just like her hometown that she wonders why people chose to live in. However, I didn’t like the book, didn’t like the relationships the character kept forming, and found the author interview at the back more interesting than the novel. One interesting comment she made was about using myths in cross-cultural ways, that the “megascale diaspora” of today make myths even more applicable because their themes appeal and speak to all, regardless of ethnicity. I found this intriguing; sadly I hadn’t really noticed the influence of myth while reading the novel. One of the questions at the end in the guide is about identity: What are the dangers of inventing one’s identity? Again, interesting question but not an interesting novel.

[Kecia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved this description of salsa as a courtship dance: "Retreat and pursuit. Promise and withhold. All longing and heartache. Ecstasy without messy consummation."

Other than that this was a real disappointment. It was too-too much in terms of both the writing style and the creepy direction the story took. Cut out two-thirds of this novel, including ALL of the murders, and it would have made an interesting short story. There is something about an adopted girl looking for her birth parents that makes for a good story. But when one of the parents is a romantic rival and the other is a psycho serial killer escaped from an Indian jail – it just gets too out hand.

[JL Smither · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed Holder of the World by Mukherjee, but was disappointed with this one. The characters are shallow in thought and description. The author doesn't provide enough detail about any of them for the reader to understand or sympathize with any of their actions. Most of these actions, which would be pretty horrific in the real world, are presented as if they are not unusal to this society-- why??
I would not recommend this.

[Rashaan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being citizen of the world is crazy-making. You belong to nowhere and every where claims you. You could be Egyptian, Thai, Fijian, Spanish or Persian, and strangers with a downright rudeness will marvel at your hair, dissect your skin color, and speak brazenly about the otherness of you. Mixed race, multi-culturals must learn to straddle borders and serve as ambassador to a crowd that only pretends to be homogenized. Members of the "rainbow tribe" learn to belong to multiple worlds and become schizophrenic in the process. Bharati Mukherjee's rambunctious and mythic novel, Leave It To Me is a fast-paced tale that lassos and wrestles the mixed race experience to the ground. Her writing, as in Jasmine and Middlemen & Other Stories, scintillates. She cuts through all the B.S. and morass to get to the beating, bleeding heart of our racially complex world.

Debby DiMartino, or the reinvented and reincarnated Devi, is a force of a nature. What makes her a great main character is that we don't know what she's capable of and neither does she. The best literary characters instill just enough fear in their readers, so that we're surprised, almost aghast, at their potency. Half Indian and half American, Devi raises a path of destruction and retribution as she seeks her birth parents. Born and raised in Schenectady by her adoptive Italian American parents, the family that cared for and loved her throughout childhood, adolescent, and teenage years gets tossed aside, while Devi follows a thin line between sanity and insanity, stalking her heritage to the Bay Area of California, a bastion for changelings and shape-shifters. Circuiting the cracked out Haight, berserk Berkeley, and even an off-road jaunt through the Caldicott Tunnel for an evening of suburban madness in Lafayette, Devi meets soul-searchers and cosmonauts who are more lost and more confused than her own orphaned and jumbled self. With psychic and transcripted transmissions from Rajasthan, Mukherjee alights the Pacific Rim with a burning tale of explosive souls enmeshed in a Vietnam love versus war saga. Devi's origin is the twisted tale of a hippie American mother, who romanticizes the East, bowing to her Oriental lover and lo! a hapless baby with a hunger for revenge is borne. Leave It to Me is a perverse dance of both classic and contemporary themes, when Casteneda meets Conrad.

[Alessia · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is probably one of the dumbest fucking books I have ever read. The back of the book says this was about a girl who leaves home to go find her birth parents....but that's not what the book was about at all.

Sure she leaves home, but then she only has her car, so she ends up homeless and living out of soup kitchens for a while, then she pretty much turns into a whore in the middle of the book. The book is already half way done at this point, and she hasn't set out to do what the main plot of the book even said she was gonna do.

Then this woman named Jess shows up, and Jess starts to hit on her boyfriend Ham (yyeeahh..don't ask about the names cuz I don't know either) and then after the longest fucking pointless exposition section, Jess turns out to be her mother. So you mean to tell me, that some random woman shows up out of nowhere and THAT is her mother?! That's the biggest fucking cop-out I have ever experienced in a book. This just proves the the writer was too lazy to write a section where the main character actually travels and overcomes challenges in order to meet her goal, cuz it's pretty much handed to her. And let's not forget that Jess has a sexual relationship with Ham too meaning that there is this fucking strange and uncomfortable incest thing going on.

All the characters were flat, characters kept dying, but I didn't give a fuck cuz they were extremely unimportant, and this book lacked a complete sense of anything. And that's really unfortunate cuz this book's premise sounded extremely interesting and one I would actually like, but I almost feel that was the author's intent. Rope you in with an interesting plot line, only to have none of that be true in the actual book.

This book has a 2.7 rating for a reason, cuz it's totally misleading with its plot, and it doesn't have anything of substance that I should give a fuck about.

If I was the author...I would be absolutely ashamed about this title.

[Delaney Mcdaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novel mysteriously sitting on the shelf in my room, so I decided it was worth a read. Although I didn't find it to be anything super special, it was a wonderfully told story. I'm usually not one who likes coming of age stories, but this one was a bit different as it involved some more mature topics such as murder and resentment. One thing I really appreciated about the story was how well it managed to include the history of each character and how creatively it incorporated India into the story. This book was definitely worth reading, but it could have improved in some parts where it came of as a bit too cliche or cheesy. Overall, though, it was very good!

[Kataklicik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible. Don't even attempt lah. I had such high hopes for this one, what with it being a New York Times notable book; having rave reviews from the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, People, New York Daily; it being inducted into the Ballantine Readers' Circle, it having a group reading guide.

Urgh, but no. Ms Mukerjee's pingpong-ing plot, here there everywhere. Erratic would sum it up. Erratic. Erratic. Erratic. If it weren't for my severe respect for the published tome, the pages of this one would be destined to be bin-liners.

[Hena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a strange one. Overall, it was decent, and I mostly enjoyed it, but there were times when it got a bit too rambly and other times when it was just a bit too out there for my taste (okay, that's an understatement ... Loco Larry? Romeo Hawk?).

If you want to read a novel by Bharati Mukherjee, I would recommend Desirable Daughters and Jasmine over this one.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't put this book down, it's jam packed with chaos, I don't know if that's a good thing all the way, but it kept my attention. And it transported me to San Francisco.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Totally unpredictable. Fun in spots. Worthwhile and recommended.

[Vairavel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read some other book!

[Jeanette Lukowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely a great Craft example of how to handle Descriptions; I got a bit lost, however, by the many twists of the "history" and characters -- and couldn't connect with the vengeful focus of the narrator.

[Brice Fuqua · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dark and very violent retelling of the Electra myth set in San Francisco.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty strange book. The protagonist's experience sometimes resonated tho....

[Rinku · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I was startled by the plot line but I enjoyed the narrative.

[Timothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

1997.
I see from readers' reviews that others had problems with this book too.

It reminded me somewhat of Jeannette Winterson, in having the main character commit murders. We are not accustomed to a novel like this, so it seems strange to us.

I was surprised to learn the author is even a few years older than me, so she actually lived through and in the hippie generation. A lot of this book is about that hippie generation and those who went thru the Vietnam War era, represented by several of the main characters, some mainstream and some 'losers'.
Set mostly in San Francisco, and she makes a lot of use of this setting.

She says in the interview at the back of the book that her summary of the goddess Devi legend in the prologue is intended to prepare the reader for the violent aspects of the plot. I was still not prepared, however, but at the end, I could somewhat appreciate her intention.

I think it is quite interesting to read a book that challenges our expectations of what a novel 'should' be.

The book raises lots of issues, about values and about the social condition of [Asian] immigrants in the U.S. but Mukherjee doesn't preach at us, she gives us a bunch of stuff to think about and draw our own conclusions.

I am curious now to read another of her books to see how different or similar it is to this one.

[Caitlin Waddick · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you read this book, the first page is a description of the Indian goddess. I think some hasty readers miss it.

Before there was _American Gods by Neil Gaimon, plenty of authors wrote stories with characters who embodied gods. _Leave It To Me is one such book. The main character is an American young woman who embodies an Indian goddess, but maybe isn’t conscious of it, much like Shadow in _American Gods comes into consciousness of his true identity at the end of the book. I love this genre, and the book deserves 5 stars. It is memorable.

The book is fun to read when you come to it with this understanding of the main character.

In truth, life is much more fun to live if you apply this understanding to each of us. Who are we really? Are we just human, or are we human *and* divine?

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it pains me to admit it, and I can hear my friend Renee laughing at me already, I picked this book up by mistake. The name Mukherjee sounded familiar and as a fan of Indian writers I thought I'd take a chance. As you probably know, but I didn't at the time, this isn't the person who wrote Emperor of all Maladies.

The book was interesting at first. But then quickly devolved into an over-stylized mess of unbelievable characters. It's as if the author, a professor, gave herself the assignment to write a book as if written by Tarintino during the filming of pulp fiction. Merciless killers and sexual predators drift in and out in a jumbled mess.

[Jenny]

I like this book because when i read it, it has this magical mysterious feeling that make me want to read more. This book is about a girl named Debby and she grew up with a set or couples that is really not her parents. When she was little her parents just disappear out of no where. From the time when she is old enough to take care of herself, she set out on a quest looking for her parents. Many literally element is shown through out the whole book. I think that this book took place based on the Greek myths,because there are so many supernatural stuff going on which is so exciting.

[Vince · Rating 2 out of 5]

Will see how this goes-so far, I am left with the question of what to do with a book when the narrator has very little (actually, nothing)to like about her...

Now that I am done, I am still feeling the same...meh. The book is short, and hard to put down due to the constant action-but the narrator is a budding sociopath (which makes sense given her father), and it is hard to find any sympathetic way to read this. i realize that many reviewers found this book funny in some way-I found it sad, and scary. Not one I would particularly recommend.

[Ryan]

I absolutely did not understand this novel at all. At first I understood what was happening, there is this girl name Debby, she is adopted by an Italian Family and when she is 23 she leaves them and go to California to find her real parents. I do not understand everything after she leaves. Who does she meet, Ham, Jess, who did she kill?, how did she plan to seek revenge on her parents. I finished the book, but i do not understand everything after she left New York. Could some one please explain in full detail what happens after, and explain the characters until the end of this novel?

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this book. It's about a young woman of Indian descent who was adopted as a small child by an Italian-American family. She decides to go looking for her birth mother and takes on a new identity as "Devi" instead of Debby, lives in her car in San Francisco, and has puzzling dysfunctional relationships with the people around her. She's not very likeable and I couldn't relate to her motivations, either.

[Shandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I gave this two stars. I didn’t like the characters, and to be perfectly honest, a lot of the symbolism/allegory/satire was lost on me. (Reading the author interview at the back of the book put some things in perspective.) However. I think Bharati Mukherjee is a pretty amazing writer, and therefore I plan to read the rest of her books. This one will probably just end up being my least favorite.

[Allyson McGill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Holder of the World. I enjoyed it so much that I recommended it to my book club to read, and so I have read it twice. I have had Leave It To Me on my shelves for years and finally took it down two days ago (June 5, 2015). I read about 90 pages before deciding that I really did not like it and did not need to finish it. Certainly it is a matter of personal taste, but this kind of book, with rough living and seedy characters, is not my kind of book.

[Fatima · Rating 2 out of 5]

not my fave

[Mona D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun hippie references. For me, this was a book I couldn't put down. I like this author in general.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlikeable main character being unpleasant. And... Schenectedy is not in the "Hudson Valley". I thought the Italian-American stereotypes were a bit smug. Hard to put down, though.

[Lorna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Violent and disturbing. I wish I had read the discussion with the author before reading this. I didn't get it