To Whom It May Concern

By Priscila Uppal

Hardev Dange is suffering through a tumultuous year. He’s just been informed that the bank is going to foreclose on his house. His fickle daughter Birendra is on the verge of marriage, his son Emile is studying curses (while falling in love with a fellow male grad student), and his younger daughter, Dorothy, who’s deaf, is working at a tattoo and body piercing parlour and collecting stories from the older men languishing at her local hangout. And because he’s confined to a wheelchair, Hardev is dependent on his homecare worker, the kleptomaniac Rodriguez, to help him devise a plan to keep house and home together.

In this modern, multicultural re-telling of King Lear, Uppal explores the vulnerability and complexity of family and inheritance. She exposes the tragic and comedic dimensions of our failures to communicate and the consequences of our betrayals, which result in disappointment and disillusionment, but also, unexpectedly, in moments of compassion and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780385673358

Priscila Uppal

Priscila Uppal was an internationally acclaimed poet, prose writer, and playwright. A York University professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she was the author of Ontological Necessities and Cover Before Striking. Her memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and a Governor General’s Award.

Reviews for To Whom It May Concern

[jlrobinson99 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a surprise. I found it on the New Books shelf at one of the campus libraries where I work. I was early for a meeting and picked this title up, glanced at the first few pages and was hooked. It's the story of an Indian-French family living in present day Ottawa. The novel focuses on the stories of the father, Hardev and his three children Birendra, Emile and Dorothy. I had no expectations for this book having never heard of the author. I enjoyed it but did find the end a bit abrupt, which is to say I was left wanting to know more about the Denge family. I've never thought of myself as someone who needs all of the loose ends of a story tied up neatly but perhaps I am, or am becoming more desirous of 'tidy' endings. For the adventurous reader, i.e. the reader who will try pretty much anything once, worth picking up.