Episode 115: Sonali Dev, USA Today bestselling author
USA Today bestselling author, Sonali Dev, introduces us to her new women’s fiction novel, THE VIBRANT YEARS, which was chosen as the first novel to be released by Mindy Kaling’s new imprint, Mindy’s Book Studio.
The story of three generations of women, Mindy describes the book as “a joyful and fun read”, “a tale about a group of underestimated women demanding respect and embracing their most authentic selves.”
We chat about the book’s choice to focus on women’s sexuality, Sonali’s desire to overcome the stereotypes of older women, and the desire to portray the full-ness of women’s lives, at any age.
Also, the power and frequency of women in our lives lifting us up, especially versus the frequent catfight stereotype, and Sonali shares how she keeps finding inspiration after so many bestsellers.
Find book club questions, food ideas, and Sonali’s recipe for scrumptious Chicken Makhani/Butter Chicken at Book Club Bites!
Books & Authors Mentioned:
The Vibrant Years by Sonali Dev (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
The Rajes Series by Sonali Dev (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
Lainey’s first novel, The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
Barbara O’Neal’s interview on this podcast
I'll Stop the World by Lauren Thoman (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
This Place of Wonder by Barbara O'Neal (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey Cameron
This book, Sonali, oh my goodness, I loved it to death. It was so fun. Bindu is just such a fun character. And I love the idea that you have three generations of women. And they're all dealing with how your family history and the patriarchy and all of these things that have been put in our heads affect us and our self worth and our relationships. But also, my goodness, this made me laugh so many times through this book, I was like, giggling out loud. Congratulations. What a phenomenal book.
Sonali Dev
Thank you so much. You're one of the first people outside of my close circle and my editor that I'm talking to about it. And so it is incredibly exciting that you laughed, and that you loved it. Thank you.
Lainey Cameron
Where are you joining me from today?
Sonali Dev
I am in Naperville, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. So we call it Chicagoland. So we're having some cool days.
Lainey Cameron
But when this airs it people will be listening going, it's just becoming fall. It's December, but we're recording this at the beginning of fall. So for what folks are wondering, like, wow, Chicago changed its seasons. We're recording this in October. And I'm so excited because there's so many good things coming for this book. And by the time you all get to listen to this interview, it's gonna have been an Amazon first reads, I think it's gonna have like so many people excited about it. Let's start by introducing anyone who's not lucky enough to have heard about it yet to the book. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about what the vibrant years is about?
Sonali Dev
It is a story of three generations of Indian American women who happen to find themselves on the dating scene at the very same time. That was kind of the thing when I started writing it that I was playing with. So there is this hot young mom, 65 year old grandmother who's just moved into this fancy retirement community, she finds herself the new hottie on the block, who is just two years out of the divorce. And the grandmothers, her mother in law, who kind of has chosen her over her own son in the divorce. And this grand daughter who is 23. She's a coding genius. And she has just written this app. Or rather, she has just pitched this app in the wake of this other really successful app that she's done. That's a dating app. And she has never dated. So she pulls her mother and grandmother in to research the app. So here they are these three single women who you know, are on the dating scene, which makes for some hilarious first dates. But, and by hilarious I mean, terrible, terrible, first dates.
Lainey Cameron
Terrible!
Sonali Dev
But I think it's more about you know, what is available to us as women today, we have to reconcile to it, you know, what are we doing with it? And what does that mean, in terms of living our best lives?
Lainey Cameron
Without giving away no spoilers, we have a no spoiler rule on this podcast, the grandmother has a secret. Her secret has to do with something that happened in her younger years. And it's wound up in a concept of shame how we struggle with being open with questions around woman's sexuality. And that really spoke to me because I love books that broach topics, which are hard topics. And so I love the fact that the grandmothers secret not telling anyone what it is was kind of related to her being okay with who she is, was that a deliberate thought when you thought about how am I going to make this thing and her past come to life?
Sonali Dev
Absolutely. I think one of the greatest things that has changed for women from my grandmother's generation to mine, which is something I have seen in real time, is what we're allowed to be sexually. You know, what we're allowed to own, how our own relationship with our sexuality is what has changed. And so I wanted to really dig into that. I just turned 50 last week, and you don't suddenly stop, right? You don't stop being a whole person. And this whole stereotype of older women either being the crone or poss and vinegar, or wise, you know, you don't suddenly just turn into someone who has turned off this fullness in terms of our body and our sexuality and attraction and all of that, that doesn't go away.
And so Bindu I think, is how I see myself and my friends, being at 65. I cannot imagine a suddenly becoming sari-wearing, putting ourselves last, being there for these punch lines. And I think a lot of it was about that. And the journey really for Bindu is that she was very young, someone who was comfortable with her sexuality was comfortable with everything she was with her own splendor. And then it's literally beaten out of her.
And this is her journey of getting it back and she does take pieces of it back. She refuses to let all of it go. And yet, even for someone that vibrant, someone that focused on not letting everything go, her identity go, she's unable to hold on to all of it. And this is her kind of having an opportunity to get it back. Because our relationship with owning our own bodies is really parallel to us owning our space in the world. You know, we're told over and over again a woman can do everything a man can and yet the fact that it needs to be said. Really what's standing in our way is our own social conditioning. We've internalized so much that just even taking what's available isn't isn't as uncomplicated as it should be.
I think one of my main focuses when I'm writing is to think about the lies we've been told, you know. And I think that one of the lies is that women pull other women down, you know that it is in our nature, because we're told this all the time, especially I think a lot of guys think it's funny to talk about how we like to call each other down, you know, the whole cat fight culture, all of that, I think, is a really great way to put the focus on the wrong things. But I, in my own life, and everything I have seen in my life is, I would not be who I am without all the women in my life who hold me up, who don't let me fall who literally propped me up. I'm sure you have the same experience.
You know, not to speak for all women, but you could probably dig in to find something, you know, where there's a very peculiar thing that's happening, but across the board, everyone I know, and certainly in my own life, women who are my friends, who are my family, who my grand mothers, my grandmother's sisters, my mother in law, who had none of the advantages, none of the opportunities that I have, and have been nothing but supportive.
So here's a woman who has had, you know, none of none of the things that allowed me to become who I am. And yet every time I took an opportunity for her, it was, you're taking this opportunity, and it was a thing of joy. And if I had chosen not to take it, she would say you can now take it, so take it.
All the women in my life who did not have the opportunities I have, they've felt sadness that they didn't get that, you know, and they've been able to share the heartbreak of that. But none of them have begrudge me and my sisters and my sisters in law getting that. And I think that that's the essence that I find in female relationships. And I was trying to kind of get into Bindu. And and Ali's relationship.
Even in the old, the old way, where where mothers in law and daughters in law were pitted against each other, the history of it is that we were literally given so few places to prove ourselves and on our self worth. You were given the kitchen and you were given the home, and then you were pitted against each other. So you were stuck in this fight where you should never have been. If you gave us a platform that is completely, you know, where we actually have real opportunities, then we're not fighting each other. We're only fighting each other when you make us fight each other like, you know, like those dog fights. You're literally trapping us with a question and then saying, oh, that's who you are. No, that's not who we are. That's the world you've created for us.
All of my books have this women who recognize that women who see how wrong it is, and then act in ways that are natural, you know, that are completely true to themselves.
Lainey Cameron
It's funny, you're talking to my heart here because my own first novel was actually inspired by the whole catfight thing and how crazy it drives me that that is portrayed that way in the media, in TV and movies and books. I had your experience, I have your experience, even in the writing community, right the way writers celebrate and lift each other up, especially women writers, as opposed to seeing it as a competition or tearing each other down for me part of what makes being in this writing community worth it.
Sonali Dev
Absolutely, absolutely. Which is not to say we don't feel bad when we see failure, that we don't feel a little bit of envy when someone gets what we want. But we all have the maturity to say, I feel this vibe, but I'm really also happy for you. And that is not mutually exclusive.
Lainey Cameron
I have a kind of related question here for you. You've been writing for a while and you have these phenomenal books and all these readers who love you, this is your first book that I would say is being categorized as pure women's fiction, as opposed to romance. But I'm really interested in how you see it, because I suspect you may not see it that simply coming from that background of having been put in the box that is romance. And now you're in this box called women's fiction.
Sonali Dev
So, it is a little complicated, I do really, relationships, I want to explore human relationships. Love is a large part of that. Even my books that have been focused on romantic relationships have really focused on protagonists, relationships with themselves and the world within which they operate. In fact, when I wrote my first book, I remember going to, you know, a writers group meeting, and they asked me what genre it is. And I had no idea what that meant. I had grown up watching a lot of Bollywood films, reading a lot of British classics, that's what was available to us and a lot of the American potboilers of the 80s and 90s. So a lot of Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer, who is of course not American, but you know, a lot of all of that. They're storytellers stories that are a mix of there's a little bit of mystery, there's, there's romance in it, there's all of that.
So, I always thought of his story as that. A person who is missing something in their life making their way to to be okay with it. And then, within their world, navigating all the things that get in the way. And so when I wrote my book, I wrote it that way. But there is a structure to romance, which kind of is also freeing, and it's also directional when you're writing.
So, also, when my book, my first books came out The Bollywood Affair and The Bollywood Bride, there were really no other books are there were really few that were actually, you know, contemporary romance on the shelves.
There were people writing, where they were being given opportunities in ebooks and things, but there weren't that that many on shelves. And automatically publishers tended to kind of not let you be in contemporary romance, and slapped almost forcefully slap the label of women's fiction on there. Because as soon as you brought culture into a story, it wasn't allowed to be just about two people falling in love.
And so it was this very complicated, kind of twisted thing that was going on. I mean, I just wrote the books I wanted to write, I had to navigate that too. When people said that this is women's fiction, I have to say, No, it is romance because it was and when people said that this is not women's fiction, I had to say this, because you know, my first my first book, The protagonist was a child bride. So there was this whole piece of culture and off, you know, world building that was also happening. And women's journey is always a part of mine.
I mean, I don't think that they're as far apart, people will say, well, oh, a women's fiction novel will stand even if you pull the romance out of it. So if you're defining it that way, then The Vibrant Years, you could maybe because it is the relationship between these three women, romantic love also plays a large part in their personal stories. But if you really wanted to you know, force that definition, and sure, could you really pull the romantic angle, you know, romance arcs out of it, and it will still stand? Yes.
Lainey Cameron
Yeah. And you can also have a woman's fiction novel that is about that emotional arc of the woman that doesn't have any romance and at the top, there can be zero romance. Mine didn't really have any romance in it but it was the nature of what the story was.
I'm intrigued as to how your editing process has changed at all. If it has, like you've had so many successful books now.
Sonali Dev
It's always hard to do. Define a process, right? I mean, if we could define our process in, in any neat and tidy terms, I don't know, we will be magical creatures not suffering our authors. If I had to filter down my process into something coherent it would be, you know, I have to really understand what I'm talking about in terms of character before I go in. It's never an outline, but I kind of throw that in these little bubbles on a page where I kind of know what's happening, and then I have to vomit out a first draft, which is literally like a glorified outline. And it's really ugly, but it has to come out really fast. 90% of my work happens in revisions.
I have found that the way I trick myself is that I write it all out, I put it out there. And I know I can fix it that can go on for as much time as that takes before it goes out for the last time. Before my book goes out, it is exactly where I want it to be. And if it isn't, I hope I never in my life have to send it out, you know, without being able to make it what it needs to be. So the vision in my head and the vision paper takes a lot of drafts, that I will have another chance to fix it. I'm able to really do what I want.
Lainey Cameron
That's great.And it talks directly to something that I know other writers are always interested in, which is what advice might you have for writers who are earlier in their career than where you are?
Sonali Dev
Oh my gosh, that's always a tough one. I write what really excites me and what speaks to my heart. And I think that that authenticity.. you know, running after the wind or kind of trying to chase trends, if that works for you, that is great. But I think the true joy of doing this thing, if you want to do this in a joyous way you have to, stick to what speaks to you what is important for you to say.
And there will be people who will tell you that will never sell and you have to take that into consideration. There are ways to maintain your authenticity. So you listen, but if it feels like a compromise, don't do it. So anything that feels like a compromise I tried to avoid. And of course perseverance and tenacity. This is a long, long game.
Sonali Dev
You know, there are a few people who come out the gate running. But it is one in a million that that happens to everyone else who succeeds, succeeds because they refuse to leave, and they refuse to give up. And that is, the only way is to refuse to give up, just hang in there, you know, and keep doing what you love doing, then it's not wasted years, if I have spent five years doing something I'd really love to do then even if it takes five years and 10 years and 15 years, you've enjoyed those.
Lainey Cameron
And how do you keep finding inspiration? Because you've had so many fascinating books, and they're also different.
Sonali Dev
I stick with things that matter to me. This idea of aging, and your relationship with your sexuality is a very important thing. To me, it sits in my head, until I figure out how to give it story form. Or something has happened, like the next book I'm writing is about a friendship that stone apart by a surrogacy arrangement. I've had friends with fertility issues, and we've had conversations when we were younger about whom would I do that for? Are there people in the world I would carry a child for? So these are conversations that have happened in my life.
I think at the heart of it, the whole Rajes series had to do with making a place your home, right, as an immigrant, this journey of owning your home, of moving somewhere and then making that journey of actually becoming of that place. And to me, that journey is me, it's it's been my life for 26 years. A large part of that journey, I think from a larger picture is political power, a home really becomes your home when you say I now want to be part of making decisions. And so the heart of that whole four book series was that.
Every one of my stories is women doing the tightrope walk between personal freedom, you know, and societal expectations. Even if it is a very serious issue that's close to my heart, I want to find, like this whole sexuality dating thing, the absurdity of the reality of dates today, right? Anything that I'm doing, I also want the really ridiculous and absurd side of it to be part of it. So that's howmy stories come together.
Lainey Cameron
There is one scene where there's a date that has a restaurant that I had never heard of the concept of this restaurant, the date, but how would you describe it all things from the earth like worms and like it's. It had me giggling that was one of the moments in the book that just had me so giggling.
Sonali Dev
I still laugh out loud at all three of those. And yes, I understand that we're gonna have to find sustainable ways of feeding ourselves. But I'm not ready to eat earthworms just yet. Um, it's hilarious, you know how often again, these things which yes, are seriously important, but the smug that goes with it. It's important, but it's also really funny.
Lainey Cameron
Well, I have one last question for you, because we're at the end of our time here. Can you recommend anything good that you've enjoyed reading?
Sonali Dev
So The Vibrant Years comes out with Mindy's book studio, and it's the first book that comes out through Mindy Kaling's imprint and the second book is called I'll Stop the World. It's by Lauren Foman. I hope I'm saying that right. And I was lucky enough to read it, read an early copy of it. And that was the last one I've read. And it is absolutely brilliant. It's time travel, which is really hard to pull off. And it's young adult she has I mean, it's brilliant. The way that she has woven all of this together. It's a page turner, and it says really important things about our world and how we do relationships and what's important and what's not. It's kind of between 1985 or 84 and the present day. It's pretty intense how the world has changed and what has happened. It's such a page turner and I loved it.
Also read Barbara O'Neal's This Place of Wonder. I mean the equanimity and kind of the depth and sensitivity with which she goes into it and the way she sees her characters as these complete beings. It's really hard to not understand. And so she made me root for maybe not root for but completely understand these flawed characters and the choices they made. Absolutely brilliant, masterful. In fact, she's masterful in her writing, like when I'm stuck, I often break down how she does beginnings, how she does transitions, how she does difficult characters. It's masterful,
Lainey Cameron
I totally agree. It really is. She's masterful, and I loved what she had to say about voice when she did an interview on this podcast and finding your own voice. I'll put the link in the show notes if folks want to go back and listen to that one. And I'll put the link to your book recommendations here. Yeah, I'm excited Mindy Kaling book studio like brand new thing. And you're the first book which is pretty damn cool.
Last question for you. Where do you hang out online if people wanna connect with you? What's the best way for them to see what you're up to and follow you?
Sonali Dev
Everything is on www.sonalidev.com. So all my social media handles and you know, email, all of that is on sonalidev.com. If you're going to pick one thing to follow, one social media platform to follow me on, I would recommend Instagram. I am very much alive there. I'm very much myself there, what my life is. I also have a newsletter, which goes out about once a month. I call it my three Rs. So it's a recipe, a recommendation, and really bad joke, which comes from my family's group chat. Godawful jokes and I thought I should share. It's it's not spammy. And you know, if you enjoy hearing from authors, it might be something you enjoy. And of course, it keeps you up to date on what's coming. My crazy 50th birthday celebration in El Salvador, you know, things like that.
Lainey Cameron
Awesome. I know I follow you on Instagram. And I love seeing your travel and what you're up to as well as your writing progress, like your new book. So I will put all the links to all of that in the show notes. And thank you so much for joining me today. And I encourage folks go read The Vibrant Years. I loved it. I absolutely adored it. I need to go write my own review.
Sonali Dev
Thank you so much, Lainey. I am really excited about this book. I feel like this was the book I was born to write. So I really hope it gets in the hands of people and thank you for helping me do that.