Staying On

Paul Scott

From Shelf: The Booker Prize 1977 Shortlist

This sequel to "The Raj Quartet" describes the fate of Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley, a British couple who remain in India after the war. The comic, spirited characters reveal the intricate class tensions of the British and the Raj, and the mute loyalty and resentful dependence of ageing couples.

In this sequel to The Raj Quartet, Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley stay on in the hills of Pankot after Indian independence deprives them of their colonial status. Finally fed up with accommodating her husband, Lucy claims a degree of independence herself. Eloquent and hilarious, she and Tusker act out class tensions among the British of the Raj and give voice to the loneliness, rage, and stubborn affection in their marriage. Staying On won the Booker Prize and was made into a motion picture starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in 1979. "Staying On far transcends the events of its central action...[The work] should help win for Scott ...the reputation he deserves--as one of the best novelists to emerge from Britain's silver age."--Robert Towers, Newsweek "Scott's vision is both precise and painterly. Like an engraver cross-hatching in the illusion of fullness, he selects nuances that will make his characters take on depth and poignancy."--Jean G. Zorn, New York Times Book Review "A graceful comic coda to the earlier song of India...No one writing knows or can evoke an Anglo-Indian setting better than Scott."--Paul Gray, Time

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