by Kalyan Ray
For the Indian sections, apart from English language sources, I delved into a wide variety of vernacular books, newspapers, reminiscences—too numerous to set down in the context of a work of fiction. Anyone who researches my novel will find these multiple roots that fed the narrative. “Truth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shown, and there alone . . . ,” as Yeats himself put it.
I shall not belabour the point that considerable research went into imagining New York City in the 1910s. Again, archival photographs in various libraries were invaluable, as were books such as Kathie Friedman-Kasaba’s Memories of Migration: Gender, Ethnicity, and Work in the Lives of Jewish and Italian Women in New York 1870–1924. Before writing about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, I read and re-read Leon Stein’s definitive The Triangle Fire, excerpts from the trial testimony of People of the State of New York vs. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, and David Von Drehle’s Triangle, a fine synoptic book. I was thus enabled to use the backgrounds of each worker I mentioned in my narrative although, of course, Bibi Sztolberg and Ijjybijjy Malouf and the cause of the fire are my invention. Josephine Grunwald is part fiction, as she is modelled on my friend Rosalind Fischell’s aunt Josephine Greenwood.
For the exigencies of the fictional narrative, I pulled some events closer together or placed a historical figure in a place where he, in fact, was not, but I have been mindful that the essential truth of the times was not tampered. The most unlikely events, however, are based on actual events, such as the foundering of the fictional ship Rose of Erin on an iceberg and the subsequent rescue; O’Dwyer’s assassination by a massacre survivor; the eruption of Vesuvius and the resultant devastation around it. Boscotrecase has now recovered, rebuilt; when I last went there, I cast a wary eye on the implacable bulk of Vesuvius.
Needless to say, different segments of research needed to be done in several countries, and without the help of librarians in each, I would have been stuck at dead ends or shut doors on three continents. I salute their separate but related tribes.
Mr. Neal O’Brien, former Member of Parliament, welcomed me to his home in Calcutta and his journal resources. He reminisced about his Anglo-Indian childhood and youth, while Mrs. O’Brien graciously added her comments on typical Anglo-Indian recipes and festivities. I recounted anecdotes of my Anglo-Indian teachers and classmates at Miss B. Hartley’s School, the first magical classroom I attended before being transferred to the mercy of the Jesuits at St. Lawrence School.
I wish to thank a number of individuals on three separate continents for their unflagging interest and faith in my work: Eugene Datta, Rosalind Fischell, Tuli Banerjee, Ethan Shapiro, Rama Lohani and Philip Chase, Dona and Dipanjan Chatterjee, Kunal Basu, Anjali Singh, Carol Zook Shapiro, Janet Eber, Geetali Basu, Deb Dimatteo, John Murray who passed away before he could see No Country in print, and, in particular, Gillian Stern in London. In India, my debts to people are too many to enumerate. Suffice it to say that I shall thank them individually, preferably over dinner. And if it is possible to thank a much-maligned city—exciting, maddening, nurturing—I want to thank Calcutta for continuing to be itself, a difficult mother.
My bi-continental agent Elizabeth Sheinkman is brilliant, discerning, and a striking beauty. None of these attributes prevented her from doling out measures of tough love when necessary. I also wish to thank Millicent Bennett in New York, who graciously took No Country under her wing; Alexandra Pringle in London has been a delight to work with, and her teams, headed in India by Diya Kar Hazra, and in Austrailia by Hannah Temby, have given me much-appreciated support.
At home, my elegant and intelligent wife, Aparna Sen, my first reader, endured untidy desks (on both continents), piles of papers and books, and my absent-mindedness, yet found it in her heart to love and support me steadfastly through the years, reading the chapters and all my revisions with a keen eye.
About the Author
© ETHAN SHAPIRO
Kalyan Ray is the author of the novel Eastwords (published by Penguin India) and has published several books of translations of contemporary Indian poetry into English, including City of Memories (Viking Penguin India), which has a preface by Allen Ginsberg. He has recently hosted a twenty-six-part series of interviews with writers, musicians, actors, and directors for a popular prime-time TV program in India.
Educated in the United States and India, Ray directed the India Program of the International Partnership for Service-Learning, which was affiliated with Portland State University in Oregon. He began teaching at St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi and has subsequently taught in Greece, Ecuador, Jamaica, and the Philippines, where he was a visiting professor of comparative theology. He has long been associated with Indian social service organizations, and collaborated with Mother Teresa, doing the translations and voice-over for the first documentary on her work (directed by Ann Petrie). He currently divides his time between the U.S., where he teaches, and India, where he has acted in several films. He has been married for the last twenty years to the film director and actress Aparna Sen.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Kalyan Ray
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2014
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Jacket design by Christopher Lin
Jacket illustrations: Ship © de Agostini/A. Aagli Orti/Getty Images; Map © THEPALMER/Getty Images; Hands © Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ray, Kalyan.
No country : a novel / Kalyan Ray.—First Simon & Schuster Hardover Edition.
pages cm
“Simon & Schuster Fiction Original Hardcover.”
1. Immigrants—United States—History—Fiction. 2. Immigrants—Crimes against—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9499.3.R39N6 2014
823'.92—dc23 2013027167
ISBN 978-1-4516-3599-7
ISBN 978-1-4516-3639-0 (ebook)
Contents
Part I: Prologue
Chief Sandor Zuloff
Part II
Brendan
Padraig
Brendan
Padraig
Brendan
Maire Aherne
Padraig
Brendan
Part III
Brendan
Part IV
Robert
Padraig
Robert Aherne
Part V
Maeve
Frankie
Bibi
Maeve
Part VI
Kush
Kush
Part VII
Billy Swint
Devika
Part VIII
Billy
Kush
Devika
Chief Sandor Zuloff
Devika
Afterword and Acknowledgments
About the Author