The Blue Bedspread [Hardcover]

Raj Kamal Jha (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2000

A midnight phone call awakens a man to inform him that his sister has died in childbirth. He is told he must keep the orphaned baby girl overnight, until her new, adopting parents can collect her. Over the course of that hot night in Calcutta, the man hurriedly writes stories to the baby sleeping on a blue bedspread in the next room: stories of the family she was born into, stories of the mother she will never know. Painting half-remembered scenes, he flits between past and present, recounting tales of the shared childhood of a boy and his sister who muffled their fears in the blueness of that very same bedspread. As the hours pass, the man gradually divulges a layered and transfixing confession of the darkest of family secrets.

Described by John Fowles as "remarkable, almost a coming-of-age of the Indian novel," this powerful, penetrating debut by a young New Delhi journalist has already been recognized as an international literary event. In prose that is breathtaking and precise, Raj Kamal Jha discovers the hidden violence and twisted eroticism of an exotic, overcrowded old city. Unlike the India captured in the exotic prose of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, Jha writes in a spare, straightforward style that has prompted comparisons to American realists like Raymond Carver and Don DeLillo. The Blue Bedspread is a searingly honest story about the love and hope that can survive in the midst of family violence. It is a first novel of extraordinary power and humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Blue Bedspread has earned Raj Kamal Jha endless comparisons to Raymond Carver. And his first novel does tell a Carver-esque tale, in which poverty-stricken family members love and torment one another in the privacy of their home. Father drinks; mother is an absence; sister and brother find solace in each other. In addition, his voice is that unsettling combination--affectless and passionate--that characterizes the best of Carver's writing. These are writers who state plainly the difficult things people do to one another.

But while Carver gave us the dead reaches of the American West, Jha's novel is set in Calcutta. And it's thrilling to read about India in this new voice that is cool, concise, and beautifully observed, as opposed to the florid, expressive writing that has come to typify this nation. Jha has chosen a neat narrative device for his tale. An unnamed man receives a call in the night. His beloved but estranged sister has died in childbirth. The baby's adoptive parents are due the next day to take the infant away. All night long, this lonely man stays up writing the history of his family, the history of the dead baby's mother.

The revelations--abuse, incest--would be shocking if they weren't written with such careful tenderness. The man writes about how his sister finally left their childhood home: "In a way, it was essential that one of us should leave never to return. It saved both of us the discomfort and the pain of sitting together as adults and talking about everything except those nights on the blue bedspread, that July night on the blue bedspread, moments that were key to our survival and yet better left untouched and unsaid." Jha even throws in a little redemption for these sad characters, and we're all grateful for the relief. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly

A family legacy of incest, violence, alcoholism and isolation comes under sudden and unflinching scrutiny as an unnamed middle-aged man in present-day Calcutta documents his family history for the future reading of a newborn niece. When the police call late at night to tell him his sister has died in childbirth, the man collects the infant and springs into action, desperately writing down family memories and his own, which he must complete before foster parents come to collect the baby in the morning. As he writes, the tiny girl sleeps on the same blue bedspread that he remembers as a talisman from his own childhood. Shifting back and forth in time he crafts a series of telling vignettes focused principally on his sister, himself, the mother he hardly remembers and his abusive father. Probing universal mysteries of ontology as well as dark family secrets, he strives to reveal the forces that shape all of their identities. First novelist Jha writes a spare, meditative prose, largely bereft of dialogue and grounded in meticulous physical description. Rhythmic repetition and brief flourishes lend the narrative a flavor of traditional oral storytelling, despite contemporary themes. Glimpses of life in India over the narrator's lifetime and carefully selected details--white and gray pigeons, an albino cockroach, foreign magazines, old maps--color a tale that nonetheless has a timeless quality. This is an impressive debut in which Jha achieves an engaging balance between the modern and the classic, the universal and the deeply personal. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (April 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375503129
• ISBN-13: 978-0375503122
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,345,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars bad, pretentious writing, May 17, 2000

By 

NIC WARD (New York/ New Delhi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Bedspread (Hardcover)

As an American who coems to India every few months, I am a keen follower of the new burst of English writings here. However this book certainly left a bad taste. I think it was dragging, boring and plain pretentious. God knows how the publishers managed the reviews. The entire story is confusing. U need an Aspirn after page 6. And I can swear that all comparisons with Carver are misplaced. There is no building up of a tale or characterisations. Even the sex is unerotic, seedy and false. What remains in your mind after you complete it is the feeling that you have been conned. Maybe the author needs encouragement, being a new one. However, I dont think this should be at the readers cost !

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Overrated and self-absorbed, May 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Blue Bedspread (Hardcover)

This book is painful to read -- the style is contrived and the language is, in equal measure, pretentious and corny. What explains all those great reviews? Danmed if I know. The publishers have done a tremendous job marketing this book. Jha does cut a nice "pretty boy" image (just look at his pic. on the inside jacket) and incest - gratuitous or otherwise - seems to sell.

Save your money, don't spend it on this one. Use it help other young talent instead.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars corny,boring,confusing..., June 17, 2000

By 

vikas kumar (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Bedspread (Hardcover)

This book is difficult to read and is pure pretense. I believe that Jha is a new writer, but I guess he has slipped up badly. People outside India may make some sense out of the whole thing, but for me this was pure disappointment. There are structural problems as well as a problem of credibility in the entire story; Such subjects require more senstivity. I think Jha should put in more effort in his next book as well as be more honest and less showy.