BLUE POPPIES

The American debut novel of Scottish playwright Falla is an intense tale of exile on a number of levels, involving bittersweet love, war, bravery, sacrifice and betrayal. In Jyeko, a town in a remote eastern province of Tibet in 1950, young Scottish adventurer Jamie Wilson, a WWII veteran, is hired to establish a radio outpost for Lhasa. Jamie is mesmerized by the stark beauty of Tibet and puzzled by its enigmatic people, who one moment are peace loving and religious, the next violent and barbarous. The cheery machinations of Buddhist monk Khenpo Nima link Jamie's fate with that of a young woman, Puton, and her daughter. Puton is considered unlucky both because of who she is, the widow of a hated tax collector, and because she is handicapped and walks with the aid of a stick. Hired by Khenpo Nima to be Jamie's housekeeper, Puton soon becomes his lover as well. After the Communist Chinese invade Tibet and establish a garrison in Jyeko, the uneasy truce between villagers and soldiers is upset by a brutal outbreak of violence, and the whole town must flee or face certain death. The townspeople refuse to allow Puton and her child to accompany them, and Jamie abandons her to her fate, but remains hopeful that he can somehow rescue her. The journey, which changes course a number of times, is harrowing, as the vagabond Tibetans time and again outwit the Chinese. Falla risks much in making Jamie a fallible, often selfish protagonist, and the detached coolness of his prose can be off-putting. At its best, however, the novel is as bracing as mountain air, and the heart-wrenching conclusion comes to seem inevitable. (Feb. 11)