My Novel, One Year Later

What I've learned / I am George Costanza.

Ghost Chilli is out in paperback in the UK today; it will be out in the US in October (pre-order here or at your fave shop). I thought it would be nice to share a few things that have shifted for me, one year after publication. Here goes:

• I used to dread questions about whether Ghost Chilli was based on my life. When I was inevitably asked that question, I deflected and danced around it. Every Phillip Roth book is led by a character who seems a lot like Phillip Roth. Why are men who do this considered brilliant, and women who do the same considered solipsistic and lacking in imagination? I stand by that defence, but I also no longer believe it’s worth defending. Nothing gives me more joy than writing down mundane observations, or recounting memories, and noticing how the process of recording them makes them seem more charged, intense, and complicated. It makes every character involved seem more human. So yeah, I just don’t feel ashamed of writing stories that echo my life anymore. Muskan is to me what George Costanza is to Larry David: a character who shares the same neuroses, but makes different decisions.

• I used complain about having a 9-to-5 job while also being a writer – devoting all that time to spreadsheets with three-letter columns when I could be writing the next great American novel, etc. But being just another commuter has kept me sane and grounded over the past year, nipping delusions of grandeur right at the bud. Anytime I felt morose about my book not making some best-of list, or if I got a bad review, I was reminded that life just goes on.

• Because my day job is in marketing / advertising, I thought marketing Ghost Chilli would be no problemo. But it was such a problemo – and that might be a good thing? Earlier this week I saw an Amanda Sabreah video on Instagram where she says all campaigns – marketing, political, etc – are based in either fear or desire. ‘Buy our product because it’s more eco-friendly than others’ (fear) vs ‘buy our product because it will make you happy’ (desire); Trump’s 2016 campaign (fear) versus Zohran’s (desire).

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  But selling novels is a bit more complicated than that. Arguably, it could fall under the ‘desire’ stream – i.e. ‘this best-selling novel will connect you with a larger community of fans’ or ‘this book will make you feel like one of the cool kids’ or ‘this book will make you feel more intelligent’ or ‘this book will make you feel something, anything’.
  
  But ultimately, readers will have their own mysterious reasons for why they pick up a novel, and trying too hard to frame their thinking often results in resentment and backlash – they become more concerned with whether the book matches the expectations set for it (‘the hype’) than the book itself. The algo tries to mimic and dictate one’s mysterious reasons for being drawn to a novel, but I think as long as people keep shopping at used bookstores, taking book recs from their friends, and reading books without any intention to post about them online, humans will stay mysterious. As Heather McCalden writes in this wonderful article you should read ASAP, algorithms and AI cannot process randomness – so it’s practically an act of resistance to be unpredictable.
  

• One year later, I finally have an answer to the question: ‘What is your book about?’ Short answer: It’s a book about letting go. Long answer: In the Evolutionary Astrology school of thought I am currently studying, there are three states of evolution – consensus, individuated, and spiritual. This aspect has generated a lot of criticism, as it is heavily implied that consensus is bad, individuated is mid, and spiritual is best. But if you take hierarchy out of it, it’s a useful framework for understanding ourselves and others – we all engage with these energies to some degree. None of them are necessarily bad, and they are not fixed states. I would argue that you need to have all three energies present in order to lead a fulfilling life.
  
  In Ghost Chilli, Muskan, like most people her age (who grew up using MySpace and other social platforms that required profiling the self), think they are individuated – but they are living in consensus reality. By refracting themselves through the systems they profess to reject (capitalism, racism, etc), they remain tied to those systems. Muskan’s family, by contrast, does not have a complex about living in consensus reality. By accepting her peers, her family, and herself exactly as they are – approaching them with more curiosity than judgment – Muskan is finally able to let go of her many debilitating hang-ups. Only then does freedom, or a more spiritual state, become an option.
  
  …just kidding! It’s a book about nothing!

Thank you so much to those of you who have read my book or are planning to. It means the world to me.

Until next time,

Nikkitha