The Charlie Doig Stories
“At last, the right kind of hero: virile, ruthless and adventurous.”
(Independent)
Introduction
Ever since I read Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King many years ago, I’ve yearned to shape out a comparable figure: the sort of man who commands a book from the first word to the last. Doig is that figure. I still don’t know if I like him. He’s rampant, rancorous, vulgar, loud, amusing and tough – and so well suited to survive the Russian Revolution. On the other hand he loves form and elegance (he’s a naturalist by profession) and cries easily.
As the Revolution is about to break out, he falls in love with his cousin, Elizaveta, and marries her. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time. What do lovers do when beset by ruin and revenge on all sides? What did anyone do in the Russia of 1917? That’s the story of Charlie Doig, that’s White Blood, which is the first of the Charlie Doig stories.
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