Notes on extinction

the long version

"Will Mendelsohn is a modern-day Charles Darwin whose first book has made him wealthy. In order to begin his magnum opus, a massive work on extinction, he sets off on a worldwide research trip. He makes a special visit to Assam, a state in northeast India, so he can spend time with his mother's friend Mim, a Holocaust survivor in frail health. But once he meets Mim's enigmatic neighbor, a married expatriate screenwriter named Grace Tagore, Will's brief stop turns into an extended stay. As he and Grace are drawn together by their haunted pasts into a transformative affair, Assam erupts in political turmoil, setting off an irrevocable chain of events that forever alters their lives."--BOOK JACKET.