The Meagre Tarmac
Clark Blaise
Language: English
Pages: 200
ISBN: 1926845153
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Shortlisted for the 2011 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee
Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award
"Clark Blaise’s brilliantly imagined The Meagre Tarmac is a novel in short-story form, warmly intimate, startling in its quick jumps and revelations, a portrait of individuals for whom we come to care deeply – and a portrait of an Indo-American way of life that shimmers before our eyes with the rich and compelling detail for which Clark Blaise’s fiction is renowned .… The Meagre Tarmac is a remarkable accomplishment."—Joyce Carol Oates
An Indo-American Canterbury Tales, The Meagre Tarmac explores the places where tradition, innovation, culture, and power meet with explosive force. It begins with Vivek Waldekar, who refused to attend his father’s funeral because he was “trying to please an American girl who thought starting a fire in his father’s body too gross a sacrilege to contemplate.” It ends with Pranab Dasgupta, the Rockefeller of India, who can only describe himself as “‘a very lonely, very rich, very guilty immigrant.’” And in between is a cluster of remarkable characters, incensed by the conflict between personal desire and responsibility, who exhaust themselves in pursuit of the miraculous. Fearless and ferociously intelligent, these stories are vintage Blaise, whose outsider’s view of the changing heart of America has always been ruthless and moving and tender.
Clark, 1940— The meagre tarmac / Clark Blaise. Short stories. ISBN 978-1-926845-15-9 I. Title. PS8553.L34M42 2011 C813’.54 C2011-900983-8 We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA To my Granddaughter, Priya Blaise For fifty years of guidance, all my Indian friends, and of course my wife, Bharati. CONTENTS These
“So,” CNN broke in, “JJ borrowed a night-vision camera. It took two weeks, and he’s finally got his answer. But it’s an answer that leaves us with a bigger question. Barring the possibility of its being an escaped exotic pet, or being fattened for a feast, did this mystery guest hitch a ride on an oil tanker from Venezuela — or did he make it all the way on his, or, I should say, on her own? Or is this another instance of global warming pushing fauna out of ancestral environments and forcing
lived like a renter, with rented furniture. She looked up from a Jamaican novel she was editing and stared at herself in the ornate mirror over her desk and declared, I am over fifty years old and have lived these past fifteen years with a woman. When we sleep, I hold my hand over her breast and the dark outline of her downiness. Unlike the gazelle-slim, Lycra-clad, spiky-haired Ramonah! Connie was overweight, smoked too much and cared too little for her appearance. “Sam,” she called, “has
raise an objection. She might be a good sociologist, but there is much she is missing in the realm of psychology. So she goes on, and I don’t interrupt. “But what I don’t love is that Mike won’t stand up to them, for me. You know what his father said? He said American girls are good for practice, until we find you a proper bride. When Mike told me that, we laughed about it. I’m friendly with his sister and I said to her, your game’s a little rusty. Think you need some practice? and we laughed
be swept away to England or Australia. My grandmother remembered — with mixed pride and terror — the Japanese bombing of Kidderpore Docks. “They meant no harm to Indians,” her father had assured her. “Their fight is only with the Britishers.” We hadn’t yet learned what the Japanese had done to their fellow Asians in China, the Philippines, Korea, Singapore and Indonesia. Indian nationalists like my grandfather would have called those pictures of bombings and beheadings “Churchill propaganda”.