Episode 93: Veena Rao, author of Purple Lotus, winner 2021 American Fiction Awards
Veena Rao shares the inspiration behind her debut novel, Purple Lotus, winner in the 2021 American Fiction Awards (multi-cultural category).
A tale of an immigrant who comes to Atlanta through marriage, the novel has been described as a "dazzling tale of an Indian-American woman finding her way through the labyrinth of tradition to self-awareness in the modern world" (Elaine Neil Orr, author of Swimming Between Worlds).
Touching on issues of domestic abuse, shame, and balancing family and cultural obligations with choosing ourselves, Purple Lotus is a page-turning story that takes the reader from India to the US and back. The novel was selected a winner in the 2021 American Fiction Awards (multi-cultural category), a finalist in the International Book Awards, for Travel + Leisure’s "20 Most-anticipated Books for Fall", and Veena was chosen as a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year.
Books Mentioned:
Purple Lotus by Veena Rao (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
**New Release** Purple Lotus on audiobook - listen to sample here on audible or Libro.fm
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Author Jhumpa Lahiri
Author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Nature of Remains by Ginger Eager (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey 0:00
I am so excited to be here with Lena Raoul, because this book, Purple Lotus, it's been winning awards, I believe it won the American Fiction Award for multicultural fiction. And I love any book that spans countries. And this is a book that starts, it takes you from India to the US and back to India again and back to the US to the South. It's dealing with all kinds of issues that are such important issues for women dealing with culture and shame. And how do you get over your childhood history? And I guess first I need to say congratulations for having this amazing award winning novel for I think it's your debut. Is this your debut novel?
Veena Rao 0:35
It is my debut novel. Thank you so much.
Lainey 0:38
Reena, where are you joining us from today?
Veena Rao 0:40
I'm joining you from Atlanta, Georgia, excuse me, Hotlanta, Georgia.
Lainey 0:46
Atlanta, Georgia, which is, I think, not a coincidence that your main character comes from India to Atlanta in the novel, right?
Veena Rao 0:54
Yes, that's pretty much the, you know, my journey, I wanted to talk about a place that I knew intimately. So that's the reason it's set in Atlanta.
Lainey 1:04
So if folks are not familiar with Purple Lotus, and they haven't had a chance to read this wonderful book yet, why don't you start by telling folks a little bit about the story what the books about?
Veena Rao 1:13
Yes, so Purple Lotus is about a woman who moves from India to the American South, and she's trapped in a loveless abusive marriage, you know, until she realizes the importance of self love. And that gives her the courage to break free, gently rebuild her life. And, you know, to fight for the right to self determination. That's pretty much the book in a nutshell.
Lainey 1:39
And it's it's a very hopeful book. I mean, she has to have so much courage to work through all of this. But to me, ultimately, I love the fact that to me, it was very hopeful book, like she is ultimately going to overcome these things. I'm not giving any spoilers away. But like, there's a lot of hope in this book. It's not it's not just sad. I actually wrote my own review that like, it broke my heart and then put it back together again.
Veena Rao 2:00
Thank you. Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
Lainey 2:02
So where did the inspiration for a fabulous novel like this come from? Obviously, you said it's set in Atlanta that's coming from real life, but like, Where was the spark of inspiration to write this story? Right, Tara's story.
Veena Rao 2:14
Actually, I was inspired by a book, a friend gave me a copy of a book called Kite Runner, which is a best selling novel, written by Khaled Hosseini. I loved it. And I was so inspired by it that I went looking for his second book, which is A Thousand Splendid Suns . And I loved it even more, I fell in love with the two principal protagonists to female protagonist, Mariam and Laila. And, you know, I was so inspired by the book that I immediately sat in front of a blank page. I didn't have a story back then. So I typed the title, Purple Lotus. The lotus is such a beautiful symbol of rising above one circumstance. So I guess I knew the trajectory of the story. But I didn't have the story. And the story developed as I wrote the manuscript. But of course, I always knew that I wanted to write a story I used to write in back in school, I used to write full length detective novels on my notebook that we modeled along the lines of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. Yeah, for my classmates to read. So I always knew I wanted to write a book. And of course, I come from a patriarchal community. So I guess I knew that confronting the patriarchy would be one of the themes of the book. And I also knew that I wanted to write about some of my early experiences as an immigrant in this country, especially the female bonds, the sisterhood that you see in the book, you know, those scenes are based on my own experiences in this country. And of course, I'm a journalist by day. And hence, it was important for me to base my book on social justice themes, like the right to self determination, and confronting abuse.
Lainey 3:58
Let me let me read a couple of highlights from one of your endorsements, and this is a beautiful endorsement, and I thought it captured the book well, and it's by Elaine Neil Orr, whose the author of Swimming Between Worlds, and I just thought she, her words were lovely. She said, It's a dazzling tale of an Indian American woman finding her way through the labyrinth of tradition, to self awareness in the modern world. The writer employs an energetic prose style interspersed with melodic passages to make the writing itself a hybrid, and she's really getting into that beauty of your writing, which I think is part of why you won some of these words. And I love her. She says it appeals to readers everywhere, especially women to claim the full measure of their human rights a vivid and resplendent novel for our time. I mean, that review right there captures why this book has been winning all these awards. Congratulations.
Veena Rao 4:47
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Lainey 4:48
So what did the revision or edit process look like for you? It was your first and like you say, you started without knowing you know, all of what it was going to be like, did you have to go through many, many versions? How did it change as you went?
Veena Rao 5:01
Oh my gosh, I had to cut literally a third of the book. The first draft of the book was over 120,000 words, it was super bloated lot of characters, especially in the first half of the book, the childhood parts of the book, which is set in my hometown, Mangalore, India, there were so many uncles so many add four aunts, two uncles, one nephew. And in the end, there was just one uncle, I had to drop all the other characters in the interest of moving the story forward. And focusing on what happens to Tara after she moves to the American South. After she moves to Atlanta to emigrate. I wanted to make it an immigrant story, and talk about what happens to Tara, as an immigrant in this country. So that's ultimately what the book is about.
Lainey 5:49
Is there anything a reader might be surprised to know was different in the earlier versions, obviously, some of the parts and characters like you say, but anything else, like did the ending change? Or is there anything that like a reader might be like, Oh, that is not what made it to the end version?
Veena Rao 6:04
Oh, yes. I've tried several endings, at least five or six major drafts with a different ending, but of course, none of that you're the writer. So you know, you know, some things work. Some things don't. And I felt that this was the perfect ending for the book, because it is hopeful. One of the earlier drafts in one of the earlier drafts principal character, I don't want to,
Lainey 6:27
yeah, don't give me any spoilers don't give greater spoilers if they haven't read the book.
Veena Rao 6:30
One of the characters died. And then I realized, no, that's not going to work with readers. And I wanted to end it with hope.
Lainey 6:39
Interesting, I'll ask you offline which character almost died. What about advice for other writers, I mean, everybody wants to have the debut that wins all the awards like this. And it's really been held up as a book. That's a great example of reading that multicultural fiction that is not just a US based book, but brings in a different cultural background, like, what did you learn along the way?
Veena Rao 7:01
Rather than just rewrite, edit your book over and over again, until you think it's polished to perfection. Read books that illuminate other cultures, diverse books, I think you cannot become a writer unless you're a reader, right? And I learned that the hard way, when I started to write my book, I had stopped reading fiction for about 10 months, because I'm a journalist. By day I run a newspaper, and a small business owner, and I was so consumed with the challenges of running it that I had stopped reading fiction. You cannot write unless I think reading opens your mind. You see things differently. You broaden your horizons.
Lainey 7:41
Do you avoid reading any particular things that are close to your own genre? I've heard this from a lot of some writers like won't read while they're revising, which is really interesting to me. I have no problem I read all the time. But I've also heard some writers say like, they can read while they're revising, but nothing that's so close to their voice or their topic, because they don't want to be influenced by something that's very close. Do you have that issue at all? Or do you find that like, No, it just does not actually crack
Veena Rao 8:05
I read other works by Indian American authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra, Banerjee, Divakaruni, over and over again, that helped me spark my creativity. Yes. And now my second book is set in small town, Georgia. So I'm steeped in southern fiction reading a lot of southern fiction is,
Lainey 8:23
well, you brought it up. So tell us a little Are you willing to tell us a little about the second one that you're working on? Oh,
Veena Rao 8:30
it's a work in progress that in small town, Georgia fictional town, the protagonist is once again from India, she's an immigrant. Well, there's a plantation house. Buried Secrets. Well, that's all I can reveal. For now.
Lainey 8:45
Great. It sounds like you were saying earlier, you imagined writing more like mystery when you were younger. And it sounds like it's got some of those mystery elements. You're saying it's got various
Veena Rao 8:55
elements, but it also talks about race relations and casual racism. So that's the main principal theme of the book.
Lainey 9:03
And let me ask you, because you have read widely among Indian authors, as you're saying, Are there tropes or things that you have to worry about that kind of keep getting repeated in the genre of literature? Or is every book so diverse and so different? There's no, there's nothing that you have to worry about falling back to?
Veena Rao 9:20
I think a lot of Indian American writers these days, are exploring with new themes. But yes, there is always the fear of going back to, you know, overdone tropes, like assimilation for one thing, you know, a lot of writers in the 90s and early 2000s, they wrote about assimilation. But I think that's overdone these days. So, yes, but a lot of new writers, you know, a lot of Asian American writers are getting published these days, and they're all you know, exploring something new. I think it's wonderful. The publishing industry is changing, and I think it's more open to the was voices, which is, you know, a wonderful thing.
Lainey 10:03
Absolutely. Well talking of obviously, you're very well read, are there any books you would recommend or that you've read recently or that you particularly enjoy that you would recommend to those who are listening to the podcast here?
Veena Rao 10:13
Yes. You know, I read books by these two wonderful, amazing Atlanta authors, Southern authors. One of them is Ginger Eager, The Nature of Remains. Ginger lives in Atlanta, and we collaborated on a teaching assignment a few months ago. And her book The Nature of Remains has won several awards, including Georgia Author of the Year, which, in the same category that my book was a finalist. The Nature of Remains dives deep into the complex lives of a small fictional town in Georgia. And I think Ginger has done a fabulous job of exploring the shifting relationships between the books, diverse characters, and the effect of a major economic downturn, the recession of 2008 on the lives of the characters, beautiful, nuanced writing, and her characters are all different shades of grey, but they will stay with you long after you finish the last page. And I love how she melts the geography of the of the place with the lives of the characters. And also this because it's southern fiction, there's deeply buried secrets, and I highly recommend this book. And the second book is Robert Gwaltney's The Cicada Tree, I think it has all the classic elements of Southern Gothic fiction, once again, a plantation house and race relations, supernatural elements, magic realism, it's a beautiful book and beautiful language A must read, I highly recommend both this book.
Lainey 11:45
Awesome. And I will put the links to both of those in the show notes on the website at best of women's fiction.com as well as links to your social media a question for you because this must be a fabulous book club book reads, I can imagine book clubs really getting into this. There's so many different topics around immigration around shame around our cultural heritage around how your childhood affects your future life, read domestic abuse, I mean, so many different themes in this book. Have you been surprised or touched by anything as you've been interacting with readers? Anything that you didn't see coming? Before your first conversations?
Veena Rao 12:19
I guess I'm surprised by how well, you know, American readers, you know, my book took a lot of years to get published to find a publisher it took 10, over 10 years to get published. I was surprised with how well they can relate the characters, they can relate to the characters and the story. So well. I think that surprises me every time.
Lainey 12:41
Interesting. I can see why though, because what she's dealing with what Tara is dealing with is universal, right? Like she may have elements of you know what she experienced personally, that come from her culture and her history in India. But the things she's dealing with, which is really about your sense of self is a universal theme. And so I can totally see I mean, I related to her.
Veena Rao 12:59
Absolutely. Oh, thank you, and abusers universal, you know, fixing abuses universal. A patriarchy also happens, you know, people stay married for different reasons. And I know of so many friends here who have gone through abuse and who have who stay stuck in a bad relationship, for whatever reason, and I'm so happy that people have readers related to this book.
Lainey 13:23
Well, before we wrap up, is there anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about relative to purple Lotus?
Veena Rao 13:29
Well, the audio book of purple Lotus just released a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really excited about it. And it's available everywhere that audiobooks are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble Google Play. And so if your readers are fans of audiobooks, please please go ahead and order a copy.
Lainey 13:50
Phenomenal. Are you happy with the narrator? Do you like how it ended up?
Veena Rao 13:54
She is phenomenal. Is? Her name is Jeed Saddy. And she is wonderful.
Lainey 14:01
Oh, that's awesome that I'll see if I can find the link and put in a link to a sample if people want to listen to a little sample of the audiobook and put links to where they can find it as well. Well, it is lovely that you joined me today. I've wanted to have you on for a while. So I'm glad we can make it happen. Where do you like to hang out in social media world? Like if people want to follow you? Is there a particular place or platform that you tend to be more than another? Well, I'm
Veena Rao 14:21
very active on social media. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And I'm trying to develop a TikTok personality. It's never too late to learn, right?
Lainey 14:33
Wow, that's brave. It's a lot to try and span all of those different platforms. It's a lot so Okay, I will put the links to all of those in the show notes too. And thank you for joining me and thank you for writing such a beautiful inspiring book. I so enjoyed it.
Veena Rao 14:47
Thank you so much.