I love it when a publisher pays just as much attention to their proof copies as they do to their retail editions, because aside from anything else it offers the reader a little more motivation to pick them up. Take this one for instance, A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee (Constable & Robinson). As soon as I took this beauty out of its packaging, I just went Wow!
This proof not only bares the same design that will adorn the retail edition when it is published in hardback in January 2010 (not an unusual feature I know), but the paper used for the pages in this proof is also of a silky smooth quality. Not bad for a ‘throwaway’ copy eh?
And what about that design? It’s simple yet intricate at the same time – a genius stroke from it’s designer, who’s identity I’ve still to discover EDIT: I’ve been reliably informed that the cover design was the work of Leo Nickolls (recently mentioned on RobAroundBooks for his cover work on Pauline Melville’s Eating Air (Telegram Books)).
On a less material level, because that’s what most important of course 
, A Life Apart has the making of an incredible read too. First published in India 2008 under the title, Past Continuous, this debut novel from Neel Mukherjee won India’s Vodafone-Crossword Award for best novel of 2008 (a joint winner with Amitav Ghosh for his novel Sea of Poppies – you can see them both at the award event HERE (bottom pic)), and its synopsis is deliciously tempting:
Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But to do so, he must not only relive his entire past but also try and understand it. Moreover, he must make sense of his relationship with his mother – scarred, abusive and all-consuming.
But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. However, the story that Ritwik writes to stave off his utter and complete loneliness – a Miss Gilby who teaches English, music and Western manners to the wife of educated zamindar – begins to find ghostly echoes in his life with his aged landlady, Anne Cameron.
And then, one night, in the badlands of King’s Cross, Ritwik runs into Zafar bin Hashm, suave, impossibly rich, unfathomable, possible arms dealer. What does the drive to redemption hold for lost Ritwik?
What do you think? Looks good to me! I’ll be diving into A Life Apart a little closer to its publication date. So keep an eye out for that.
Constable & Robinson | 28 January 2010 | £12.99 | PAPERBACK | 352 PP | ISBN: 9781849011013
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