The Bloodstone Papers Read online

  It’s no good. The Cheechee Papers, I’m forced to admit, are adrift, beginningless, endless, a fucking mess.

  I finish my umpteenth glass of rioja, pour another to kill the bottle, light a cigarette, and without any care for order start to gather up the pages.

  When I’m finished the stack weighs as much as a newborn baby. I take it over to the desk and set it down next to the computer.

  I remember everything, the first line of the top sheet says. That’s the problem.

  I pick up a red pen, and by monitor light (surprised again by the presence of the bloodstone ring on my finger), carefully cross it out.

  Which, in the gently perverse way of these things, feels like a beginning.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Daily, during the writing of this book, I’ve been reminded of how fortunate I am in my family and friends, all of whom, in different ways, have helped me see The Bloodstone Papers through to its end. Therefore my sincerest thanks to: Kim Teasdale, Louise Maker, Mark Duncan, Marina Hardiman, Edgar Duncan, Stephen Coates, Nicola Stewart, Jonathan Field, Vicky Hutchinson, Sarah Forest, Peter Sollett, Eva Vives, Andrea Freeman, Mike Loteryman, Gavin Butt, Jon Cairns, Nicola Harwood, Jeremy Woodhouse and Isobel Haydon. Thanks to Lydia Hardiman for The Beige Moment.

  My agent, Jonny Geller, and my editor, Ben Ball, have between them guided me through six novels with a diligence, sensitivity and loyalty that leaves me profoundly in their debt. Thanks too to Rochelle Venables, Hannah Corbett, Helen Simpson, Carol Anderson and all at Simon & Schuster.

  The following titles have been especially useful:

  Allen, C. (editor) (1975), Plain Tales From the Raj, London, Andre Deutsch Ltd

  Anthony, F. (1969), Britain’s Betrayal in India: the Story of the Anglo-Indian Community, Bombay, Allied Publishers

  Brennan, J. (2000), Curries and Bugles, Tuttle Publishing, Periplus Editions, North Clarendon, VT

  Caplan, L. (2001), Children of Colonialism, Berg, Oxford, New York

  French, P. (1997), Liberty or Death, London, Flamingo

  Lonely Planet (Singh, Barkordarian, Beech, Bindloss, Derby, Ham, Harding, Hole, Horton, Pundyk Vidgen) (2003), India, Lonely Planet Publications, Melbourne, Oakland, London, Paris Singh, K. (1974), India, an Introduction, HarperCollins Publishers India/The India Today Group, New Delhi, London

  Westwood, J. N. (1974), Railways of India, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, London, North Pomfret (VT), Vancouver

  Lastly, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this book would have been impossible without the love, support, faith, tireless storytelling and inimitable cuisine of my mum and dad. Throughout this work—throughout my life—they have been, and continue to be, the lights by which I steer.

  About the Author

  GLEN DUNCAN, an Anglo-Indian, was born in Bolton, England, in 1965. He is the author of five previous novels: Hope; Love Remains; I, Lucifer; Weathercock; and Death of an Ordinary Man. He lives in London.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  PRAISE FOR

  The Bloodstone Papers

  “The Bloodstone Papers is an intriguing depiction of the complexities of dual identity…. You keep on reading, fascinated by the descriptions of colonial India and by the quandary of the Anglo-Indians’ unstable, porous identity…. The relationship between father and son, and the story’s ending are models of a grand forgiveness, of a vision large and bighearted.”

  —New York Times

  “Duncan’s novel has a cinematic scope…. He is expert at evoking the sights, sounds, and smells of pre-independence India…. A story about love and the strange twists of destiny that lead us to it.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

  “A talky, pleasing generational novel of divided worlds, blending postmodern conceits with old-fashioned whodunit conventions…. A vigorous roman à ghee, reminiscent at turns of Vikram Seth, Zadie Smith, and Douglas Coupland.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Glen Duncan’s richly detailed sixth novel…spins in two parallel narratives…. The key relationship in the book is…a lovingly complex bond that gives The Bloodstone Papers its warmth.”

  —Seattle Times

  “Duncan’s polished, merciless, and frequently hilarious prose supplies a trove of pleasures all its own.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Duncan smartly tackles a swath of race issues, relationships, and sports amidst political turmoil. For all its ambitious scope, however, The Bloodstone Papers resonates most in its small, sad pangs: as a depiction of two promising lives that failed to turn out as expected.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “The Bloodstone Papers is a fantastically well-written book bursting with perfectly wrought riffs on existential truths…. The Bloodstone Papers embodies everything that makes great fiction so captivating—humor, intelligence, insight, and imagination—and weaves it into a tightly plotted, wistful elegy to a vanishing people.”

  —Sydney Morning Herald

  “This richly satisfying novel [rolls] along with an easy humor buoyed up by Duncan’s skill for quick, evocative characterization….Duncan manages to fuse racial and personal dislocation beautifully in this long, seductive narrative. The Bloodstone Papers is primarily a terrific yarn.”

  —The Independent on Sunday (London)

  “An insightful meditation on life and love, realized in superb and unerring prose that reveals Duncan to be the Anglo-Indian Alan Hollinghurst. Superb…. Perhaps this book will finally bring him the mainstream recognition he deserves.”

  —Arena

  “A sprawling, ambitious work that loops back and forth through history with remarkable lucidity…. Very moving.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  “The questions of racial identity faced by Anglo-Indians caught up in the chaos and bloodshed of India’s partition underpin this finely detailed story…. Always believable characters and a well-realized portrait of the birth pains of a nation are strong points in this robust account of a writer in search of a story.”

  —Daily Mail (London)

  “He is still firmly in command of that area of masculine feeling whose most authentic resonance rises from missed opportunity and frustrated yearning. If not victims in the fullest sense, his male characters are walking wounded, the more enthralling for the way in which their lacerations defy any kind of orthodox cure.”

  —Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement (London)

  “Glen Duncan is a writer of unflinching honesty, painfully brilliant on the unexpected tendernesses of loveless, metropolitan sex…. It’s unusual to criticize a novel for having characters that are too interesting, but if The Bloodstone Papers has a fault, it’s that the Monroes are so beautifully vivid that one wouldn’t care if nothing actually happened to them…. An ambiguous, challenging, lovely read.”

  —The Sunday Telegraph (London)

  PRAISE FOR

  Death of an Ordinary Man (2004)

  “Duncan’s exhilarating, almost exhausting flood of insight into family patterns of love and habit…is matched by the rich unexpectedness of his writing and the complex construction of the narrative, which mimics the structure of thought.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A superb, uncoercively moving novel.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “A powerful, unflinching, and frequently dazzling meditation on the kind of courage it takes to endure the unthinkable.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Once you pick up this book, you’ll read on breathlessly.”

  —Salon.com

  “There is no one around posing the questions that Glen Duncan is posing in the manner that he is posing them. You find yourself turning the pages of Death of an Ordinary Man not because of any particular narrative urgency, but because of the sheer force of his imagination. At the same time, his prose style is one in which an axiomatic acuity fi
nds its way into the most high-flown and daring flights of conceptual fancy. What he is doing is wonderful, extraordinarily dark, and, yes, important. It is important because he is a major writer.”

  —The Independent (London)

  “An appallingly intelligent writer…. A dense, subtle, sensitive, perfectly shaped fiction.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  PRAISE FOR

  Weathercock (2003)

  “Weathercock…is the tribulation of a Catholic boy arm-wrestling with his conscience, and it is wonderfully realized…. It is packed with the kind of fizzing intelligence, tight comparatives, and pithy observations that suggest a writer at the height of his powers.”

  —The Independent (London)

  “A grandly conceived bildungsroman…full of wry observations and good jokes…. Never less than fascinating.”

  —Times Literary Supplement (London)

  PRAISE FOR

  I, Lucifer (2002)

  “[Readers] likely won’t want to put it down. Duncan is witty and perverse, yet somehow life-affirming; Lucifer is powerful indeed.”

  —Booklist

  “Captivating and truly clever…. Successful in its attempt to humanize Lucifer…. If you like witty, raunchy British humor, you’ll love this.”

  —Library Journal

  “Clever, stylish…fiendishly funny, wickedly eloquent…. Conveys Lucifer’s musings on the nature of evil and his sensory adventures in hilarious, pyrotechnic prose.”

  —The Big Issue (London)

  “A wicked, impish conceit…ably orchestrated with Duncan’s playful intelligence and sizzling wit.”

  —Arena

  “Duncan packs more wit and energy into one page of I, Lucifer than most writers fit into an entire novel.”

  —Neal Pollack

  PRAISE FOR

  Love Remains (2000)

  “If good writers are those who make the ordinary remarkable, Duncan is a very good writer indeed.”

  —The Times (London)

  “Scarily thorough and relentless in its accuracy: no one is spared.”

  —The Independent on Sunday (London)

  “Duncan takes you down paths of the heart you had forgotten existed, and others you fear to tread.”

  —The Sunday Times (London)

  PRAISE FOR

  Hope (1997)

  “Powerful…shocking…intellectually charged…. Hope is a brave and astonishing first novel, rare in that it delivers on its narrator’s promise that he has a story to tell that will rock your world. This is a brilliant debut.”

  —Boston Globe

  “An intelligent and perceptive exploration of male attitudes toward sexuality…that would make Jackie Collins blush.”

  —The Observer (London)

  Also by Glen Duncan

  Hope

  Love Remains

  I, Lucifer

  Weathercock

  Death of an Ordinary Man

  Credits

  Cover design by Allison Saltzman

  Cover photograph by Keren Su/Getty Images

  Copyright

  THE BLOODSTONE PAPERS. Copyright © 2007 by Glen Duncan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © JUNE 2008 ISBN: 9780061876127

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