The Meagre Tarmac

Blaise's wife Bharati Mukherjee will be releasing her new novel with Hyperion in May 2010, and the two will have several joint launches, readings, events across North America 10,000-15,000 marketing and publicity budget publicity and promotion in conjunction with author's speaking engagements 50-75 copy ARC mailing select print and online advertising Former head of Iowa Writer's Workshop, and very well connected within the NBCC: we expect this collection to get wide review coverage co-op available

An Indo-American Canterbury Tales, by a North American master of short fiction.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.