Sopan Deb, KEYA DAS'S SECOND ACT
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[1:13]So Pan Dev is the author of Kaya Desses second act
[1:17]So Pan is a writer for the New York Times where his topics have included sports and culture
[1:21]He's the author of the memoir mist translations meeting the immigrant parents who raised me
[1:26]Before joining the Times, Dev was one of a handful of reporters who covered Donald Trump's
[1:30]2016 presidential campaign from start to finish as a campaign bed for CBS News
[1:36]He was named to break out media star of the election by Politico
[1:40]At the New York Times, Dev has interviewed high profile subjects such as Denzel Washington, Stephen Colbert
[1:45]The cast of Arrested Development, Kyrie Irving, and Bill Murray
[1:48]He lives in Washington DC with his wife and Doug
[1:51]Welcome so Pan, thank you so much for coming and moms don't have time to read books
[1:55]Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Wow. It is my pleasure
[1:59]I want to hear about your latest novel. I know you've already also written a memoir
[2:03]You're a journalist. You've all this amazing
[2:05]Stuff, but let's talk about your latest book tell listeners everything about
[2:10]The second act for your characters and why this whole book came to be sure
[2:15]I was called Kaya Doss's second act that came out on July 5th
[2:19]I'm really excited about it started writing it in 2020 right after my memoir
[2:23]This translation came out and I was thinking a lot about grief and I was thinking a lot about healing and forgiveness and redemption
[2:30]And so I just set out to write the story about this Bengali family who has been split apart by grief and
[2:36]Games to come together to art. They decide to stage a play after discovering
[2:41]It written by their teenage daughter, which they lost in a car crash
[2:45]But the book explores a lot of things that are interesting to me particularly South Asian family dynamics
[2:51]LGBTQ acceptance in the South Asian community a lot of the book
[2:56]is based on
[2:57]Stuff I observed on close for example
[3:00]It takes place in the New Jersey suburbs where I grew up
[3:02]All the characters are named after a family friend growing up like Kaya who the name of the book is Kaya Doss's second act
[3:08]Kaya is a family friend I had growing up and and so forth and so on
[3:12]But I also I'm a big theater person. I grew up a theater kid. You know, I was in musicals in high school
[3:18]I was in a musical in college
[3:20]I covered I wrote about theater for the New York Times
[3:23]And so they want to bring that experience and combine that with my other personal experiences and put together this novel
[3:29]And I'm really excited for it to be out there. Oh, congratulations
[3:34]Of day. Awesome. Go back to the beginning for a sec if you don't mind
[3:37]So you were born in New Jersey. When did you actually was born in Lowell, Massachusetts?
[3:43]And then I moved to you but I mostly grew up in New Jersey. I moved to I moved to Jersey
[3:46]When I was like three or four. So we're all tens of purposes. Okay, fine. Okay, Lowell to New Jersey
[3:52]And then when did you become injured like when did you know writing was gonna be a thing for you?
[3:57]It was theater the overwhelmingly
[3:59]You know bright interest in your life or when did when did writing come into everything?
[4:03]Interesting question because I actually started taking panel lessons when I was like six and
[4:09]Music was a huge part of my life going up
[4:12]I originally was thinking out going to agriculture music to be cared for a piano
[4:16]So when did I start I started writing music when I was you know shortly after I started learning how to play piano
[4:23]So in that respect that that creative side of me has been in me since I was kid
[4:27]I'm in terms of when I started writing specifically
[4:29]I went to college for journalism. That's when the kind of writing career
[4:33]Really as far as like putting words to paper kind of earnestly began
[4:38]And then in terms of writing fiction when I did my memoir
[4:42]After the memoir came out
[4:44]I essentially said to myself wait a minute
[4:46]You if you can write this and you already write for the New York Times
[4:50]There's no reason you can't try a novel as well
[4:54]And you know, I read quite a bit and I was reading other novels
[4:58]I mean, I can I think I can do this
[5:00]And so I gave it a shot
[5:01]That's essentially how the novel came about and it was such an interesting exercise
[5:05]I really enjoyed it did not feel like it was difficult and challenging
[5:09]But it wasn't I really enjoyed the challenge of of string stringing the books together
[5:14]Interesting start with the memoir though
[5:17]When you tell me some of the main because I have not read
[5:19]I don't have the memoir and I wish I had gone back and read it before the scenario
[5:23]And I'm sorry
[5:23]But tell me about that it's called missing translation missing and translation
[5:28]translations
[5:30]Tell me about that and what somebody who hasn't read that memoir should know about you
[5:35]Sure when I was turning 30 give or take
[5:39]I realized I had not seen my dad in more than 10 years
[5:43]I didn't see my mom
[5:46]In about I think at that point I was four or five years and then I didn't even know whether we're living
[5:50]I didn't know anything about them. I didn't know where they came from
[5:53]How many siblings they had their birthdays their age how they met
[5:57]My parents were arranged to get married and had a very difficult arranged marriage and they got divorced for like 30 years
[6:03]And the reason they stay together all that time is because
[6:06]Divorce is very stigmatized in South Asian culture
[6:09]So we had a very even though we all lived in the same house
[6:12]You know until I left for college. You know, we didn't know each other though
[6:14]We didn't speak we didn't enjoy being around each other and and then after college
[6:19]I just lost touch with my parents just and at some point my dad
[6:23]Just went back to India and didn't tell anybody just I didn't even know until he was out there
[6:26]So the book tracks a year of my life as I try to find my parents
[6:30]And essentially get to know them because I didn't know anything about them
[6:33]I didn't know and the big takeaway for me from the book was you know my generation
[6:38]So I grew up in you know middle-class New Jersey
[6:41]I didn't have to worry about like where my next meal was coming from right
[6:45]I I had the freedom to thrive
[6:48]You know because because I'm growing up in you know middle-class America
[6:52]And my mom and dad when they came here in the 70s
[6:55]You know, they they had to
[6:59]They didn't know necessarily know where that next meal
[7:01]They claimed came here very little me. You know, they didn't know where you know that they were gonna survive
[7:06]Right and so think about how that affects you and how that affects your worldview
[7:11]How that might so for example in the case of dealing with mental health struggles for my parents
[7:17]You know, you know for me. I have a I have a language to talk about mental health right
[7:21]Oh, I'm you know therapy, you know depression etc
[7:24]For my parents they didn't even entertain
[7:26]Thinking about those things because well, I we gotta you know get a paycheck
[7:30]You know, and so there's just a lot of getting to know
[7:32]You know the them and and trying to empathize with the generation before me and
[7:37]and being this you know son of immigrants and just kind of learning about that story
[7:42]Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs
[7:44]Right once you get taken me back to psych 101 or whatever
[7:48]Yeah, that's those pretty first you have to worry about survival right
[7:51]And then you can work your way up to like you know
[7:54]Absolutely. Yeah, I need to serve her like me. You know
[7:58]I'm at the pinnacle of overthinking, you know, thank you
[8:04]Too much food is you know too much food too much thing. Yeah, great perfect
[8:08]Wonderful wait. How did you lose touch with your parents like that that's such a it's an interesting way to say that
[8:16]So you go to college like did they not check in on you?
[8:19]Did you feel abandoned like what was that like?
[8:22]Well, it's funny when you when you say it like that
[8:25]It's like oh wow that is pretty weird
[8:26]But for me it was totally normal didn't feel abnormal and I'll tell you why I like in it to
[8:32]If you had a college roommate
[8:34]That you occupied the same space
[8:37]But you didn't speak to you weren't really friends
[8:39]You just lived in the same space and that was the case with my family in life
[8:44]Like we lived in the same space, but we didn't speak to each other
[8:47]We didn't know each other so when I left for college
[8:50]you know, it was a
[8:52]I you know, we just had no kind of bonds to fall back on other than kind of sharing the same DNA and then
[8:59]My dad left for India, you know unexpectedly in freshman of college after my parents officially
[9:04]You know what happened was you know
[9:08]We did have some contact during college
[9:11]But the conversations increasingly became strained and ultimately just kind of peered out because we just didn't have any common frames of
[9:17]Reference we didn't have anything to talk about they didn't know anything about me
[9:20]I didn't know anything about them and part of it was just we didn't make the effort either
[9:25]So and then just for a micro a micro example right is you know my parents
[9:29]Know grew up in India moved here
[9:32]It's not like they're particularly into like American pop culture or anything like that
[9:36]They're not into you know
[9:38]They're not particularly reading the news a lot
[9:40]So here I am a journalism major at Boston University
[9:43]And you know
[9:44]They don't know my friends. They don't understand what journalists do. They don't understand
[9:48]You know what it is that I'm trying to do and so it made our conversations is just very still sit right and and then
[9:55]I woke up one morning. Oh my god. It's been a long time since I even talked to them
[10:00]And it's incredibly strange when you say it like that, but in that moment, in my 20s,
[10:07]as I went through this, it didn't even, it didn't register for me. For me,
[10:12]what was weird is when I'd go to friends' homes and I'd see like very warm parents,
[10:17]my friends are talking about like intimate details over there. I'm like,
[10:21]what is that? That's weird. How do you do that? And so for me, that was weird.
[10:25]But as I, you know, as I got to kind of a couple of years ago, I was like, wait a minute,
[10:29]no, no, no, I'm the one with a strange situation. I should probably examine this in some way.
[10:34]So did you feel love? Did you feel like they loved you?
[10:39]Uh, that's an interesting question. See, it's not like, you know, I think this is the
[10:46]case for me, South Asian parents. It's not like love is an easy language. It's not like my parents
[10:51]were growing up being like, I love you. Wow, what a great kid you are. That's not how
[10:55]it worked. It was, you know, you have these cultural expectations or this and that,
[11:00]but their parents, they weren't warm parents. But that's culturally pretty, pretty common.
[11:06]So did I feel loved? I don't know, but I didn't know that that was an obligation.
[11:14]You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't like, it wasn't something that I knew that I was lacking.
[11:17]Now, I will say once I went through the kind of memoir process, we had a lot of very difficult
[11:22]and ultimately interesting and satisfying conversations. Yeah. I, I think my parents, you know,
[11:27]very much do love me. I just, it's, it's just not something that comes easy for them to express
[11:33]because again, that requires very much being in touch with your emotions and being able to
[11:37]talk to them and be willing to talk about that stuff. And that was not something that came,
[11:41]came using to my parents. But when you were in a, I think it was a level of household,
[11:45]I would say generally it was a level of household because, you know, my parents were,
[11:49]I'll tell you a quick story, which is the way my parents got a wrench and married,
[11:52]which is my, my dad was living in New Jersey. And he was an engineer. He had just moved to the
[11:57]US and he was working. I think he was one of his first jobs and he was lonely. And he put an
[12:02]ad in a matrimonial newspaper targeted to her as Indians. And so, you know, I'm, I'm X8. I'm an engineer
[12:12]living in New Jersey looking for a wife and, you know, blah, blah, blah. So he gets a couple
[12:16]of responses and he gets this response from my mother, you know, headshot, you know, it's kind of
[12:20]like, you know, pre, you know, pre internet Tinder, essentially. And so my dad flies to Toronto
[12:28]at the invitation here to meet was meet my, my, my, eventually my mom. And essentially he knocks
[12:35]on the door and my mom opens the door goes, who are you? What are you doing here? And essentially
[12:40]what had happened was that my mom's mom, so my grandmother responded to the ad pretending to be
[12:47]my mom, essentially. And that's how my parents met and my mother did not want to marry my father,
[12:53]but was pressured by, you know, her mother to marry him. And, and that, and then, you know,
[13:01]cultural expectations being what they are. She of course did it. And that's how my parents got
[13:05]married. And they, you know, they weren't a good mess from the start. And if you think about this,
[13:08]like, oh, you know, I think if you marry out of love, you have children out of love, you have,
[13:15]you know, it's, it's, that's the process, right? Whereas when in a range marriage, especially one
[13:20]like my parents, it's a little bit more of a business transaction, right? You have kids because
[13:25]that's what you're supposed to do. You get married because that's what you're supposed to do,
[13:28]culturally. The parents help set that up because that's what's supposed to happen. And so it's,
[13:34]so the question of like, oh, did I feel love? It's like, when you're the product of kind of
[13:40]a business transaction that's supposed to happen, it just creates a little bit of a different
[13:44]dynamic. Now, that's not to say that, you know, children of a range marriage is are not loved.
[13:50]Other children, you know, I don't plenty of, you know, South Asian children who, you know,
[13:54]have parents who got a range to get married had a very loving household and a loving relationship
[13:58]with their parents and their parents love each other. But it's just, in this particular household,
[14:02]I would say it was a loveless phone growing up. Then I find it so interesting because in your
[14:07]novel right away, there is so much love, like there is the loss and the deep feeling of a loss
[14:14]of a child, right? It's that sensation and heightened emotion. Whereas the way you're describing
[14:20]your home was like completely the opposite. Yeah, I would say that's right. I also kind of
[14:26]felt like when I was, you know, I, I, you know, I examined my own parents in the memoir. So I want
[14:34]to do something different with the novel. With that being said, there are parts of the novel,
[14:40]if there's a character of Shanthanu who's the father who, when we meet him at the beginning of the
[14:45]book, he's living by himself and he's alone and he's separated from his family. My father could,
[14:50]my father was, remains in that position, you know, because he lives in the idea by himself. And
[14:55]he spent a good portion of his life by himself. You know, it's something, you know, my wife,
[15:00]Wesley, you know, we obviously very, we just got married last month. And we, and we, the joy that
[15:10]I felt with her, the answer, you know, that that 30 seconds and then you may not kiss the bride
[15:15]my parents never felt, you know, they're now combined the 160 years old or whatever the,
[15:21]yeah, give or take, they've never felt that for 30 seconds. You know, and so, but I examined that
[15:26]a lot in the memoir, but there are parts of that that I think exists throughout the book. It's just
[15:31]just in a different form, if that makes sense. Wow. So interesting. I know I was relating to the
[15:37]dad in the book whose joints were like cracking. It seems like up there and like trying to get
[15:42]why can I not even stand up anymore? This is, oh my gosh. Anyways, so thanks for that. You're like
[15:48]throwing this aging rapidly 45 year old alone with these creaking joints and all the rest.
[15:55]So quickly what to, I hate the word pivot because it's so like used to jump back and forth between
[16:02]journalism, covering sports, doing all the stuff that you're doing at the times and everything,
[16:08]and then dipping into your, the other part of your brain. Like how do you go back and forth?
[16:14]I am like, to be honest, I'm working on a memoir that's under, I mean a novel that's under contract now
[16:19]and I'm like, I keep putting it off because I'm like, I need a day where I can just like focus only
[16:24]on that and like that day is not coming. Like how do you, can you go back and forth in a day? Can you
[16:28]like jump into it for an hour? Like the way you could an essay or an article or something?
[16:33]Yeah, the way I do it and the way it works for me is I set a cat for myself. I mean,
[16:39]you know, I do my, you know, if I'm right here time to do that, you know, obviously.
[16:43]But in terms of what I have, you know, a bunch of creative projects and what I do is,
[16:48]let's say I'm running enough and I say to myself, okay, I'm going to write, that was into
[16:54]1500 worst day. Let's say I'm just taking our trade number or this section. And no matter how much
[17:01]energy I have, when I get to the end of that section, I stop. I don't care if I have,
[17:07]I can write more. I don't care. You know, I just stop because this way, you know, if, if you
[17:13]let's say your book is 75,000 words, I look at it as 75 1,000 word essays. And so this way I can
[17:23]kind of maintain the energy to keep going. And also it makes the book seem a little less daunting
[17:30]as a bunch of little things to write rather than one giant book. And that's, that's what
[17:37]helped me. And in terms of your other questions, just kind of how I balance back and forth,
[17:41]I really enjoy writing creatively. And so journalism is not a particularly creative in depth.
[17:49]It's not. And at the New York Times particularly, New York Times and editors medium,
[17:55]not a writer's medium. I get, I get the buy line. But the editors are often kind of the driving
[18:02]forward between what gets written, why gets written, how you write it, etc. And that's the case
[18:07]of all levels. Now, for me, what's great about writing fiction or writing a play or writing a pilot
[18:15]or whatever else, it's your domain. You get to put really put your voice into it. If you have
[18:21]ownership over the characters or memoir, whatever, whatever it may be. And that makes, it makes
[18:27]the writing a lot less, it makes it more fun. It makes it more, it makes it more, if you feel like
[18:31]you're, you're driving the conversation a lot more. Because you literally are.
[18:34]Yeah, that's not the case in journalism journalism. It's a, it's a lot more of an editors medium.
[18:38]And, and for good reason, because they are amazing card rails against, you know, sometimes your
[18:45]own worst impulses or, you know, they're fact checking or whatever, whatever else that may be.
[18:50]But I don't view it as, you know, it's, to your point, you're using a different part of your
[18:56]brain. And I have a lot more fun using that part of the brain. So it doesn't feel as owner of some
[19:00]daily basis. I'm doing writing for the times and also writing a novel and also writing a play,
[19:04]you know, when you put it like that, yes, it does seem kind of exhausting. But if you put it this way,
[19:09]if you are doing your day job, but then you're also, you know, I'm just thinking to make up a
[19:13]hobby. You're, you're a, a knitter. You love knitting. I'm just making this up, you know, or, or you play
[19:18]basketball or table tennis. You wouldn't ask yourself, well, how do I manage playing basketball
[19:23]and my day job? Well, because you like playing basketball. And that's how I feel about creative writing.
[19:27]That's a great analogy. I love that. Yeah, even like putting on music. Yeah, 100%. You know,
[19:33]you know, I did that in me. Yeah, I view creative writing as therapeutic. I get to interrogate parts
[19:41]of myself that I wouldn't necessarily otherwise interrogate in doing anything. But other people like
[19:46]Wesley, my wife, Wesley, her outlet is cooking. She loves to cook. She loves experimenting with recipes.
[19:52]She loves, you know, she loves, she's even like eating. She loves just cooking. And that's, that's
[19:57]for her. That's her thing. Yeah, be my thing.
[20:00]is right. Yeah. My husband also loves cooking. I've gained like 30 pounds, but it's okay.
[20:07]Oh my gosh. I'm like, I'm like, but I don't want it to stop. It's so good.
[20:13]Well, I love that. But then do you have an, then do you have an outline? When you jump into it
[20:18]for a thousand words, like, do you know what's coming? Like, I feel like part of the time would
[20:22]be spending figuring out what's coming next or not. Yes. So I did a lot of improv comedy in my
[20:29]my 20s. And which is actually for any of your listeners who are thinking about either writing
[20:36]a novel or, you know, I actually think taking improv is incredible training to write it off
[20:43]because it teaches you storytelling. It's fun. It teaches you arc. It teaches you, you know,
[20:50]how to make your brain think in a different way. And so for me, I don't like to outline.
[20:56]I mean, yeah, I have a general kind of idea what I'm trying to explore, but I don't like to outline
[21:00]because I like getting to know the characters as I write that. So, but to your point, yeah, part of
[21:06]that. So part of the process is trying to figure out what's next. Whether it's the next project,
[21:11]whether it's the next page, whether it's the next paragraph. And most of the time I enjoy that,
[21:17]because I love like, okay, what's, what am I doing? How do I write myself out of this corner?
[21:21]Then there are times where you go, oh man, I've written myself into a corner.
[21:26]And I should have probably outlined this. I should have probably planned where I was going
[21:28]here or I don't know. But this is where actually I also send pages constantly to friends. And I
[21:34]say, I've got 10,000 words here of an 80,000 word novel. I don't know what to do. Read it. Tell me what
[21:39]you think. Some writers are very like, you know, they hold onto their writing and they go,
[21:45]no, no, no, I can't show it to anybody. No way. Me, if I have 10,000 words, I'm sending it. I'm
[21:50]sending it because oftentimes friends and trusted people are giving you great feedback. And they're
[21:56]like, wait, why don't you try this? Have this character do X, Y and said do this? And that's,
[22:01]that's really helpful to me. But I know not all writers like doing that because they're very,
[22:06]you know, they're very possessive. So to speak, I understand that too. Whatever works for you.
[22:11]Interesting. I feel like I only send it to my editor because I'm afraid if people don't like it,
[22:16]like then I have to start over and then I'll like never get anywhere. Yeah. I will say to
[22:22]to your point, I wrote a novel last year while this one was in development that I thought was
[22:29]really good. I didn't show it to many people in the process. I just, I just had the idea. I actually
[22:33]outlined it. I had India and I wrote it and I thought it was like really, you know, strong and,
[22:41]you know, of course I would rise and you work six months on it. And you know, and some people
[22:46]that I really trust read at the end and they look at me and they go, this should not be your next
[22:51]book. Oh, no. And I'm like, what do you mean? And, and, and you know, I, I sent this as some,
[22:58]you know, people in the business that I really trust and they're, they kind of agreed.
[23:04]Like, man, I really, and so that was what I resolved myself. I was like, okay, I'm going to go back
[23:08]to sending people stuff. It's like, yeah. Not outlining. And not outlining. And this way,
[23:14]and this way I avoid this, this calamity. Oh, my gosh. Well, that is, that's really interesting.
[23:21]I mean, I feel like the second novel is so I keep hearing all these cautionary tales about it,
[23:26]but that's interesting. And it's so nice that you have a group that you trust that much.
[23:29]That's yeah. Yeah. I'm very fortunate. Well, I don't know that they consider themselves fortunate.
[23:34]I think I pretty much force them. Like when your friend comes to you and says,
[23:39]hey, man, I need really need to read my pages. Yeah. They don't feel like they can say no,
[23:44]because I will batter them until they do. And so I don't think they consider themselves lucky,
[23:48]but I certainly do. Excellent reading by, you know, shoving pages down the throat. Maybe that's
[23:54]why they didn't give you such good feedback. Right. Maybe you should find somewhere willing readers
[23:59]and see what they do. Or you toss it all together. I would get a second read from a new group.
[24:05]Okay. What advice do you have to aspiring authors? Oh, man, I had just gave one away,
[24:10]which was to always send pages to people. One other thing I would say is, and I think I'm sure
[24:16]you know this better than anybody, like, yes, your talent matters. Of course, it does. And work,
[24:23]I think matters. I also think that networking is really, really important in the industry,
[24:30]whether you're writing nonfiction, whether you're a journalist, whether you're,
[24:34]especially if you're a journalist, frankly, whether you're efficient, because ultimately,
[24:38]a lot of we are kind of brought up with the myth that the world is a meritocracy. And if you
[24:43]work really hard and you have a talent that you're going to, yeah, you're going to get to where
[24:46]you need to go. But oftentimes a lot of a lot more stuff comes about because you are a,
[24:53]easy going along with, and b, you know the right people at the right places. And so I think it's
[24:58]really important to cultivate relationships. And I'm very fortunate that I've had amazing editors
[25:05]who I've developed really deep relationships with that I hope will continue on for a long time,
[25:10]but likely won't because they'll get sick of me and I don't blame that. But I really think it's
[25:14]important as you begin your writing career to have mentors, have rabbis where you can. And so that
[25:21]so that when opportunities come about, they consider you for them, or they already know who you are,
[25:27]you know, and I think that's a really under appreciated thing about coming up as a writer.
[25:32]I wish writing was just about writing, but it's not unfortunately. Very true. That's true.
[25:37]Especially if you want to sell it, I guess. Yeah, right. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
[25:44]Congratulations on your book. And I'm wishing you all the best. And I want to know what happens
[25:48]with the second book and if you can revive it enough. Thank you. I'm grilled. I'm really excited
[25:54]and I'm looking forward to chatting again. You too. All right. Take care. Bye-bye.
[25:58]Thank you so much. Bye.
[26:01]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:04]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebioens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:10]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[26:14]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures
[26:19]Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[26:23]fantastic intro and outro music.