Published by Third State Books
EDISON
The Debut Novel by Pallavi Sharma Dixit
Available Now!
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"In this effervescent debut . . . a large cast of endearing characters, including Prem’s roommates and the Bollywood performers he recruits, round out the story, which is enlivened by Dixit’s natural gift for screwball comedy. This romp is one to savor."
—- Publishers Weekly
“A sparkling epic worthy of Bollywood’s silver screens.”
—- Kirkus Reviews
“Edison by Pallavi Sharma Dixit is a gem of a novel and a paean to Edison, New Jersey’s Little India.”
—- BookTrib
EDISON is a Bollywood-style love story brimming with song and dance, action and comedy, a love triangle, angry parents, an evil villain, and cameos by real Indian actors - a hilariously moving love letter to Bollywood and to the Indian American community of Edison, New Jersey, where debut author Pallavi Sharma Dixit grew up.
The unlikely star of EDISON is Prem Kumar, the hapless youngest son of a titan of New Delhi industry. Obsessed with Hindi movies—what the world would call Bollywood—he is uninterested in joining the family business or marrying the spear-wielding heiress chosen by his father. He runs away to chase his filmmaking dreams in America, but his plans are immediately derailed. Instead, he finds himself crashing on a mattress and working at an Exxon gas station in the Indian immigrant community of Edison, New Jersey.
Though life is not going according to script, Prem finds a happy rhythm in this bewildering setting. When the beautiful and ambitious Leena Engineer bursts onto the scene, she and her grocery store–owning father upend Prem’s short-term plan to do as little as possible, launching him on an epic adventure to make something of himself. Supported by an unruly cast of roommates, aunties, murderous yet orderly mobsters, and film stars at once glamorous and ludicrous, Prem test-drives the role of hero, along the way witnessing around him the transformation of an ordinary suburb into a bustling “Little India.”
Praise for Edison
“A delightful and perceptive jaunt into the heart of the Indian American community of New Jersey, Edison is a charming, often hilarious novel brimming over with life, laughter and dreams worthy of the most outrageous Bollywood movies.'“
—- Chitra Divakaruni, Author of Independence and Mistress of Spices
“Reading Edison, I kept feeling amazed that a single novel could do so much. Pallavi Sharma Dixit has given us an unforgettable love story, and a riotous comedy, and a tender coming-of-age tale, and a history of an American city, and an homage to Indian cinema told with all the romance and drama and verve of the movies. Edison is these things and more, a debut novel that arrives fully formed and brilliant. I am, simply, in awe of this book.”
—- Nathan Hill, NY Times Bestselling Author of Wellness and The Nix
"Pallavi Sharma Dixit's Edison is as musical, unexpected, and over the top as the Bollywood that binds us. Get ready to laugh, cry, and dance your way through this necessary book."
—- S. Mitra Kalita, Author of Suburban Sahibs
