Potential in Debrakot

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 22

Potential in Debrakot

Neglected Lives. By Stephen Alter.' Arena/Macdonald, 1989. 179 pp. $12.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Jim Burns) The mixed race Anglo Indian community forms but a tiny fraction of India’s teeming millions. Yet often, when Western authors write about India, their characters are identified as being members of this community. Usually, unfortunately, they are protrayed in unheroic and unflattering roles. Though born in India of American missionary parents, the author does nothing to redress the balance. What redeems his collectively unlovable characters is that they are memorable, as is the crumbling and desolate hill station Debrakot, round which the author’s story evolves. For example, there is Farleigh, the

bizarre recluse who encourages legions of bloodthirsty leechs to attach themselves to his bared flesh. I enjoyed reading "Altered Lives,” but felt no novella could do justice to Debrakot. Perhaps it holds some of the potential of Paul Scott’s mythical hill station. He wrote “Staying on” as a stand-alone novel and it triggered off the other three sections of his Raj Quartet. It Stephen Alter does return to this theme he might project ar more balanced image of the hard done to Anglo Indians.