Not Me; A Novel

New York: Random House, 2005. First Edition. Hardcover. New/New. Not Me is a remarkable debut novel that tells the dramatic and surprising stories of two men-father and son-through sixty years of uncertain memory, distorted history, and assumed identity. When Heshel Rosenheim, apparently suffering from Alzheimer's disease, hands his son, Michael, a box of moldy old journals, an amazing adventure begins-one that takes the reader from the concentration camps of Poland to an improbable love story during the battle for Palestine, from a cancer ward in New Jersey to a hopeless marriage in San Francisco. The journals, which seem to tell the story of Heshel's life, are so harrowing, so riveting, so passionate, and so perplexing that Michael becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about his father. As Michael struggles to come to grips with his father's elusive past, a world of complex and disturbing possibilities opens up to him-a world in which an accomplice to genocide may have turned into a virtuous Jew and a young man cannot recall murdering the person he loves most; a world in which truth is fiction and fiction is truth and one man's terrible-or triumphant-transformation calls history itself into question. Michael must then solve the biggest riddle of all: Who am I? Intense, vivid, funny, and entirely original, Not Me is an unsparing and unforgettable examination of faith, history, identity, and love.

About the author:
Michael Lavigne was born in Newark, New Jersey, and educated at Millersville State College and the University of Chicago, where he did graduate work on the Committee on Social Thought. His first novel, Not Me, received the Sami Rohr Choice Award for emerging Jewish writers and was named an American Library Association Sophie Brody Honor Book and a Book-of-the-Month Club Alternate Selection; it was also translated into three languages. Lavigne has worked extensively in advertising, for which he has won many awards, is a founder of the Tauber Jewish Studies Program at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, and spent three years living and working in the Soviet Union. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Gayle Geary.

Reviews:
"This surprising novel starts with a complex and compelling premise and concludes with a neat and satisfying ending....Unfolding in suspenseful increments, the tale ties up nicely with historical accuracy and moral ambiguity." Barbara Fisher, the Boston Globe, November 27, 2005

"....crisply written and never less than engaging." Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2005. The Library of Congress catalog entry for this edition notes that it is printed on acid-free paper.