Abhi posted earlier about The Bollywood Beauty. If you’re in the mood for a light, pulpy read, here’s what’s currently on the chick lit shelves at my local bookstore. While we’re at it, let’s play Orientalist buzzword bingo!
Bollywood Confidential by Sonia Singh
Raveena isn’t having much luck in Hollywood as an Indian beauty, so when her agent nabs her a starring role in a Bollywood film, she jumps at the chance and relocates to Bombay.
The Village Bride of Beverly Hills by Kavita Daswani. Exotic!
… Priya… finds herself the one chosen for matrimony and life across the seas in Beverly Hills… Luck lands her a position as a receptionist at the tabloid Hollywood Insider, and her exotic politeness wins over the red carpet community.
Singh previously wrote Goddess for Hire. Curry-scented!
A hip chick from Newport Beach… discovered she’s the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali… Saving the world, though, may prove to be a curry-scented breeze compared to dealing with her extended Indian family.
Daswani also wrote For Matrimonial Purposes. Cardamom-flavored!
… the Prada-loving fashion publicist still finds herself “oddly drawn to the age-old system of arranged marriage…” The only flaw in this heady, cardamom-flavored confection is the rushed happy ending…
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p>At least most of those covers benefit from a retro-modern style of line art cover. You’ve gotta admire the ballsiness of this cover, which just goes for it:
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p align=left>Spice! Curry! Lehenga! Indian jewelry! Slinky bird! I can’t tell whether I’m mail-ordering a book, a bride or take-out.
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p align=left>The curse of trite marketing afflicts more genres than one. This literary novel adopts the graphical shorthand of the South Asian niche as its frickin’ title. It’s like calling a chick lit book Skinny Legs In Stilettos. Marshall McLuhan was right — and I bet it would sell.
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As far as I know, most authors don’t insist on approval rights over covers and blurbs. In contrast, M.I.A.’s album cover comes straight from her stencil art. If you’re still wondering why so many dig her, it’s because her sound is fresh, and she defines herself, herself.
Sorry! Once again-
Eh..forgot the covers. It would help it the authors themselves weren’t so deadset on ramping up the exotic factor on the pages inside.
I’ve read For Matrimonial Purposes. (don’t ask)…vomit! So very.. ‘look at my shiny-shiny bangles!’…’ah, but our Indian families are so very close you know, the bonds are, like, mystical’…she ends up wowing a crowd of Paris fashion designers, (dropping all the big names too), by wearing a sari!…That magical garment! Karl Lagerfeld has never ever seen one before, I’m sure.
Crappy book that sells, sells, sells every last cliche about being Indian to a (presumably) clueless and enthusiastic reader.
Er, where to begin…
I’ve read Bollywood Confidential, Goddess For Hire and For Matrimonial Purposes. The reason those covers “have the benefit of a retro-modern style of line art cover’ is because they will be marketed as chick-lit. Just as cereal for young children has cute, colorful characters on their boxes, all books placed under the ‘chick-lit’ sign in your favorite, crappy, super-bookstore (where no one knows anything about books, anyway) will have bright colors, stilletto heels, and stylised images of thin women.
The latter two book will be shelved with similar ‘women’s fiction’ titles for mid-western housewives who adore Oprah and Katie Couric and who will eat up the exotic factor. (Yeah, I agree with Cicatirx that many of the authors are at fault for pumping up the exotic factor. On the other hand, it sells. Making books is a business and writing such makes money. Who’s to say that making money is a bad thing?)
As for first-time authors and cover veto-rights. Forget about it! First-time, midlist writers rarely get a marketing budget.
P.S. I’d like to see some first-time author get their “stencil-art” on their book cover at a major publishing house. They’d be laughed at by sales, marketing, and finance, the people who make all the final decicions at any major house. Unfortunately, Manish, things don’t work that way in corporate publishing.
Which is why M.I.A. went with a smaller label and Stephen Wolfram self-published. You don’t get into bed with a gorilla if you need creative control.
Fair. But those – most – who self-publish rarely sell many copies of their books, and rarely make a living off their writing. Yes, there are exceptions…
I do lament the state of bookselling today and how books are bought and marketed. I hate the superstores and what they’ve done to American arts and letters.
It’s a money, time and control tradeoff.
You can choose to work with #3 rather than #1 and you get more creative control
You can do it on your own in 10 years instead of with someone else’s money in 3 and retain full control + a bigger cut
I actually read “Serving Crazy with Curry” and surprisingly it didnt’ suck. I was bracing myself the whole time, and while it was a bit amateurish and not terribly intensive on the brain, well… it was enjoyable!
I’ll give the author props– anybody who can write a suicide scene and have you snicker or snort, and not feel guilty for it, yet still completely empathize with the character is ok in my eyes…
Yes. Money isn’t bad. I could sure use more. But it does piss the hell out of me when I see people sell South Asian culture in such a manner that ferengis (totally bad of me to say that since I’m pretty American these days) get to some low-tier cotton-candy fluff and feel cultured at the same time. What a two-fer!
I guess I’m still scarred from seeing a Anand Jon fashion show at some Midtown NY club a few years ago. Blonde chicks in nothing but Wonderbras (no cholis!!!) draped in barely 3 yards of chiffon. You could totally see underwear, and they walked around like they’d trascended the banality of the world or some shit. Loads of skeezy desi uncles there with eyes popping outta their heads, looking real excited, y’know’waddamean? One kept breathing “so lovely, lovely” until I snapped “really? would your wife like one?” while those super-aerobicized trust-fund-y chicks looked delighted to have such a great excuse to display more. His regular collections look like they involve more fabric, but I’m not alone in my opinion. Ech..famewhore.
so, ummm..back to books:)
This is a great, funny post – I hate those Curry-Sari book covers they are so annoying.
PB- and the ones with mehndi… ugh.
another book – not chick lit but I got attracted to it by the sari on the cover at the washington airport ……..
The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan It is about Nur Jahan.
Shan Jahan built the Taj for another wife not her and got into trouble with his dad over Anarkali when he was still the crown prince salim but apparently he loved Nur jahan best…..
Ugh. Don’t even get me started on the Twentieth Wife. It plays into EVERY South Asian stereotype that exists… Exotic Harems! Arranged Marriages! Cruel Husbands! Gag
I do love (good) diaspora literature, does anyone have any recommendations? (Except Jhumpa Lahiri..don’t know why, her books are moving but seem very condescending to immigrant desis to me… esp The Namesake)
Rupa,
‘American Brat’ by Bapsi Sidhwa was v readable. Not as good as her other books though, the ones set completely in Pakistan.
Another one i liked was ‘Monsoon Diary’ by Shoba Narayan, this one is autobiographical. Impossible to read this one without feeling hungry, so make sure you can cook or have an ‘aunty’ close at hand, so you can drop in at DINNER – 1 hours, and (under protest, of course) stay for dinner 😉
Finally ‘The Inscrutable Americans’ by Anurag Mathur is hilarious.
This one has to be the all time worst – The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Divakaruni Baneerjee – the one that is being made into a movie by Aishwarya:
Oh my God, am I alone, am I alone in wanting to strangle somebody after reading that synopsis? How does this s**t get published?
Please someone tell me I am not alone – that when I read this stuff I just want to scream?
Manish, I’m not interested in defending any of these, but I think you’re being a little hard on the writers and unfair in your comparison with MIA. It’s a LOT easier to disseminate a record with a small time label than a book. Nice looking books, the kind most new-book-buying readers are willing to pay for, cost a lot more to produce than you’d think. Paper is actually not that cheap, especially paper that falls apart. Putting together a good front and back is nontrivial. It can be done–I know people who’ve done it–but marketing itself is a bitch. It’s a low margin business even for the big houses—pathetically risky for “small labels.” Writers tend to be starvers, and unlike performers, they have nothing but the physical product to hawk. They usually don’t even get paid for signings.
I wouldn’t want to go down this path, but I really admire these gutsy women for making SOMETHING get out in print. There’s somethign to be said for producing rather than constantly holding out for higher standards. MIA did get lucky in a lot of ways. That’s just life.
The #’s I’ve seen say ~$2 for an average novel, in large lots. Albums seem like ~$0.50 for the CD + $1 for the silkscreening, inserts and shrinkwrap.
It’s also important to understand just what it is that you’re producing.
It’s a hugely inefficient business as is. There will be novels published online and an iTunes for books soon.
Please someone tell me I am not alone – that when I read this stuff I just want to scream?
Man, it makes me want to claw my eyes out. But you know, it’s just an Asian “Like Water For Chocolate.”
Saheli, great points.
Manish, I think many writers “understand just what it is that [they’re] producing.”
But to your other point – online novels and such – I think it would be great, but the biggest problem with the publishing biz is that it is so damn old-school. They are the last to embrace new technology and self-published books are still looked down upon by the ‘establishment’ (i.e. publishers, large and small; bookstores, large and small; reviewing institutions, i.e. PW, Kirkus, NYTBR) with such loathing and disrespect.
It’s a filtering problem common to many interactions (biz, social). Both the very worst and the very best are indies, for different reasons. The trick is telling them apart a priori.
Industries don’t change biz models willingly, they’re dragged kicking and screaming. But it’s inevitable.
Manish, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I hope the inevitable comes sooner rather than later.
I found “Hullabalo in the Guava Orchard” by Kiran Desai to be terribly funny…and no, the cover does not have saris, curries, mehndi or any of the usual suspects.
Ay, there’s the rub. Dual filtering problem: telling the good from bad a priori (by which I assume you mean by the publisher) and getting the readers to notice and buy the good, avoiding the bad.
Too many great new books languish in bargain bins, while bathetic, cloying crap hugs the bestseller lists. Publishers can throw money at a good book, trying to get people to notice it, but the avenues availble to promote books are very limited. Also, the more money a publisher spends on a book (including the advance) compared to like, 30 books being sold? Shoots down the author’s chances of getting his next book published, anywhere. So some crafty editors actually hold back on throwing more marketing money at a book, jsut to be able to convince the publisher to buy the author’s next book, despite the poor performance of this one.
Sooooo:
The inevitable has arrived. Have you noticed the glut of non-fiction self-help titles? After the success of books like “Who Moved My Cheese?” ” and “The Purpose Driven Life” has resulted in a billion motivational/spiritual books being published.
If the old-school publishing establishment ignored such ‘crass’ details as profit, revenue, etc. in favor of publishing the equivelent of a literary van Gogh, (I’m generalizing obviously), the business-model has changed so that publishers reflexively publish more of what sells well. e.g. Since those rabid right-wing screed sold so well, most houses established Conservative divisions to scout for the next Rush Limbough/ Sean Hannity/etc and get him signed up to a book contract.
Publishers used to be taste-makers, championing the literary etc. Now they’re jsut a bridge between what authors write and the public wants to read. Actually scratch that, it’s almost entirely about what the public wants to read, as determined by best-seller lists.
You’re not alone. I did, however, like some of her other titles like Arranged Marriage, Sisters of my heart and Vine of desire.
Actually what really made me want to scream was Bollywood Babes. I decided to stay away from the desi books that were popular with the CBCDs after that [in high school].
Well I got the chronology completely wrong on that one. Let me see Jahangir – Nur Jahan Akbar – Rajput princess (gimme the name someone) Shahajan – Anarkali,Mumtaz
Phew!
Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s just chick lit. The intellectual equivalent of a hostess twinkie. If eating a twinkie now and then makes people happy, so what? Really, 100 years ago would there have been a market for the Barnes and Noble’s of the world? Would people have had the leisure or time or money to read much at all? The secretaries I see reading a fat paperback at lunch; 100 years ago what would they have been reading at lunch? Yeah. Right.
I love the big book stores, I love the small ones, I love them all. A lot of times, when I can’t find a title I want at the little store, and the hip attendent is too snotty to order something for me, I go down the street to the big box store and get the nice attendant to order the title. Or, they may already have it. Books, book, books, I love them all, from the twinkies of chick lit to the entrees of the more serious stuff. It’s only a minority that ever really read the serious stuff, anyway. Today and yesterday. And a lot of the new stuff seems dull to me; you go to college, get a degree, go to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and write a workshop book. Why should I read it? I read a lot more alive, electric, intriguing prose on blogs than I do in the sorts of books the experts tell me are good.
And I’ll take a dumb chick lit book over the military saluting terrorista chick-lite any day. But, whatever. Make your own choices people.
I think it’s great that all these young people are writing and getting published. Good for them. Maybe they don’t want to write the great Indian-American novel. Maybe they’re doing exactly what they want.
True, MD– not every book is going to be Mistry’s “A Fine Balance”… sometimes a little fluff is good beach/commute reading, a little time-pass 😉
I’ll take some brown chick-lit fluff over another brick by Dr. Phil.
Though Monica Ali’s “Brick Lane” was utter crap.
(Except Jhumpa Lahiri..don’t know why, her books are moving but seem very condescending to immigrant desis to me… esp The Namesake)
Gawd I SO agree. I wanted to take the brat in Namesake and tell him to grow up. For god;s sake, 28 is too old to go around being embarrassed about your parents.
please don’t do the namesake hatred. i love my lahiri, while the novel is great the short stories are phenomenal and definitely deserved the pulitzer. and she’s not even one of the best desi writers…
but please don’t bag her on a post that is devoted to much more hatred-worthy subjects as the books above. ugh ugh
ps does anyone know the person who posts as ‘Kiwi’. Kiwi if you’re reading this, do you live in Auckland? sorry just thought you were all North Dakota bunker-dwellers
I read serving crazy with curry and i was really surprised to see it wasnt like the thousands of other book indian books about the family experiencing culture shock.This book didn’t have that (except for 1 character) and it focused on issues people frm all around the world could relate to.I loved this book
Just wanted to say that I agree that the majority of desi-chick lit is crappy, The Sari Shop would not be in that category. It’s about a boy who actually works in a sari shop in the Punjab and is told from his point of view. It deals with spousal abuse, the class conflict, as well as the conflict between smalltown and bigtown. Therefore, I was a bit confused and concerned to see it up on here on a list with other suspect literature. Maybe a book shouldn’t be judged by its cover or its title.