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Lucy Burdette: You Reds know I'm a big fan of Sujata Massey's books. I'm thrilled to hear the news that Rei Shimura will be back in our reading lives soon...and we're delighted to have Sujata visiting today to talk book clubs...
SUJATA MASSEY: Cranberry-topped Brie. Hummus and carrots. Strawberries, assorted hot teas and a bottle of Pinot. The only items yet to add to this menu are a group of ladies and a “serious” book.
I remember joining my first book club in the late 1980s with other young single women. We had various links, but the most important was our desire the read the best books of the era and talk about them. We didn’t flinch at the cost of buying a non-discounted hardcover each month--or the evening hours needed to read these books, which we always finished on time.
I’ve got less time and more expenses for which to budget, a quarter-century later. Fortunately, I’m still part of a delightful book group that meets once every few months. And I attend far more book clubs as an author guest, an honor that began occurring every now and then since I became a published writer—and because popular fiction novels with happy endings are now considered fair game. However, walking into somebody else’s living room, where everyone has an opinion, is sometimes daunting.
One of my most challenging book club visits occurred with my first novel, The Salaryman’s Wife. Shortly after I’d settled myself, one of the members began a Perry-Mason like questioning of why two characters hooked up casually while on vacation. Although the series is not erotica, this book club reader was steadfast in her belief that my book was full of sin—and I could not get away from her disapproving glare for the remaining hours of the meeting. And then, a year later, a different book club read Zen Attitude, asked why I didn’t treat gay sexuality more openly. My faith in the diversity of readers was restored.
It’s no surprise that sex comes up so much when I visit book clubs. The magic of an in-person book club is that it’s an intimate gathering that often uses a text as a springboard to discuss personal concerns. And from my own selfish perspective, I’ve found these gatherings are a good place to discuss my future book ideas with readers, taking note of plots, locations and types of characters are most intriguing to the group. Book club members have also reassured me that long novels are still popular, regardless of what professionals in the publishing industry may think. What a relief!
As times have changed, a way that I connect with book clubs around the world is by phone or computer, using programs like Skype, Google Plus and Facebook. I have to admit, though, the likelihood of screens going blank and voices fading out are so frequent when camera time is involved that it’s almost easier to just speak on a landline with the speaker on.
Then, there are the bookclubs where everyone stays at home: the private groups on Facebook and Goodreads, where people agree to read one book over a month’s time. While virtual book clubs can’t offer real food and drink, they are great for people who can’t make it to a real-time book club, allowing them to post their opinions whenever it’s convenient. I love that you could be serving in Afghanistan and still belong to a virtual book club. Or in a hospital bed, commuting on the train, or trapped at your kid’s hockey game. And I’m not sure people in virtual book clubs realize how influential they are. These are the readers who are more likely to dash of a quick, useful online review of whatever they’ve read at sites like Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Kobo. Increasingly, the voices of the book clubbers—rather than mainstream media reviewers--are what can drive books to successful heights.
I write this while in the final editing stages of my first Rei Shimura mystery in six years, The Kizuna Coast. This novel is set in the post-tsunami world of Japan, where a newlywed Rei Shimura, plus her elderly antiques dealer mentor, and an adorable, nosy dog, are on the hunt for a young woman artist who’s gone missing. Are the cultural details right? Do the clues add up, but not so fast they spoil the read? All this will be clear after I spend time with book clubs.
To celebrate the launch of The Kizuna Coast, Baltimore-based mystery and historical fiction author Sujata Massey wants to be part of your book club. The first 5 readers who contact Sujata (sujatamassey at mac.com) with a plan for a scheduled book discussion in 2015 will get an e-book, trade paperback or audio MP3 download as a thank-you. Happy holidays and happy reading!
The Kizuna Coast will be available Dec 15 at amazon (paper and ebook) and in both formats everywhere else Feb 15.
Reds, tell us about your favorite book club experiences. What books have stimulated the best discussions?
LUCY BURDETTE: If you haven't read anything by Sujata Massey, I'm very excited to introduce you to her. I have loved her series mysteries featuring Japanese/American Rei Shimura. And now she's published a historical novel set in India, which is a wonderful read. So I asked her to talk about the transition... Welcome Sujata!
SUJATA MASSEY: New Year’s is often the time for grand resolutions. Two decades ago, early January was when I decided to start my first novel. But first, I had to wrestle with something pretty difficult. It was a writing-school convention I’d heard more than a few times. Write what you know. Specifically: write in the voice of a protagonist with whom you have a lot in common, because that’s easier to do naturally.
For me, this presented a conundrum. I was born in the 1960s in England to parents from India and Germany, but immigrated with my family to the US in early childhood. I have a straightforward American accent based on a lifelong education here. Still, when I shared with writing friends that I wanted to write fiction, I got a standard response. People suggested that write about India, or perhaps Indian-Americans. Mind you—not Germans or Brits or Americans—Indian-Americans! This could only be fueled by my name: Sujata Banerjee Massey.
I nodded, considering these two ideas; but inside, I argued against all of it. What if Melville hadn’t dared to write in the voice of a whale, or if Arthur Golden thought he couldn’t assume the literary identity of young Japanese geisha? I wondered if Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote a fantastically detailed novel from the viewpoint of an English butler, was ever told to roost in the same kind of pigeonhole. It irritated me that nobody suggested that I write about the US or Germany or England. Of course, I could just barrel ahead and consider these settings—but unfortunately, none of the patches in the quilt that made up my past seemed inspiring.
Then I had an unexpected chance to leave the Baltimore newspaper where I worked and move to Japan with my husband. Living in a small seaside town called Hayama, I felt enthralled by my environment and realized that an expat’s inside-outside relationship was not only interesting to me, but might make a good set-up for a sleuth. Many people reading the first Rei Shimura novel, The Salaryman’s Wife, didn’t pay attention to my unknown author name on the book jacket and assumed I was partly Japanese. But what would the Japanese think of a foreigner writing about their country? From reviews and conversation with Japanese readers, it turned out that I would always be regarded as a foreign writer--but one who had observed small things that were meaningful about the culture. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and wrote nine more mysteries about Rei, using her adventures to talk about the juxtaposition of contemporary Japanese life and its wonderful cultural history.
I kept writing about the Tokyo area, even after I’d moved back to the U.S., but again something unexpected happened. I was growing interested in India as a book setting. Over a three-year period, I traveled twice to India to adopt my children, visit relatives, and live in homes in Kerala and Bengal. I sent my young daughter to Indian dance class and got my son involved in tabla drumming. All of three of us studied Hindi, some more enthusiastically than others. I even became a social studies teacher, folk dancer and board member with the School of Indian Languages and Culture. As the years went by, and I began researching my books setting, I sent holiday cards and Facebook-friended Indian relatives. I was becoming more Indian--but as with my Japanese experience, it was driven by my interest in traveling, history, artistic traditions and politics.
And thus was born a historical novel set in 1930s Bengal that took me more than four years to write! I felt I couldn’t write about modern Indian life without taking up residency there. But I’d been to Calcutta often enough since the 1970s to know what the city felt like. I had a strange, almost protective love for the old Indian and British colonial buildings that were slowly fading from its streets. I wondered about the rich Europeans who had once lived inside the stucco beaux-arts mansions of the so-called White Town, and the Bengalis who lived in Black Town’s narrow streets filled with all sorts of fascinating shops and homes. Once I learned that Sleeping Dictionary was a nickname for the young Indian women who once taught European company officers the local languages and manners, I knew I had a great book title, but more importantly, a clever, brave heroine with a foot in each of the towns—and a secret interest in Indian independence.
And you know what? While I figured out that I could actually pull off writing about India and enjoy it—I learned something deeper. It was the understanding that if I put the research and heart into it, I could enjoy writing books set in Britain and Germany or the U.S. without feeling stereotyped. Not because I was born with some kind of genetic link, but because I’ve really explored a place and talked to people.
This is very simple writing tenet that all writers should know—but that took me about twenty years to learn.
Did you ever feel pressured by family or friends to follow a certain path? How did you come to terms with it?
Sujata is offering two free copies of THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY to two lucky commenters!
Over the course of eleven books, Sujata Massey won the Agatha and Macavity mystery awards and was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark prizes. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Baltimore, Maryland. To learn more about The Sleeping Dictionary and The Ayah’s Tale, and to get a copy of a free short story sent to your inbox, sign up here
