Sonali Dev, THE VIBRANT YEARS: A Novel

[1:19]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, the creator and host of the award winning podcast that you're listening to right now. Thank you so much. Books. It is a daily podcast three hundred and sixty five days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career, their book, their life, and more in thirty minutes or less because who has time? I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature wherever books are sold starting July 1, and my children's book, Princess Charming. You can learn more about me at zbowens.com. But really, you're here to learn more about the authors, and that is what we're going to do. Also, be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the z cast podcast network. You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com, and definitely check out those shows as well. Sonali Dave is the author of The Vibrant Years, a novel. USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dave writes Bollywood style love stories that explore universal issues. This is her second time on the podcast. And actually, she contributed to Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids, my second anthology, and you can read her essay there and also watch the two of us together on Good Morning America live on pub day. Her novels have been named best books of the year by Library Journal, NPR, The Washington Post, and Kirkus. She has won numerous accolades, including the American Library Association's award for best romance, the RT reviewer choice award for best contemporary romance, multiple RT seals of excellence. She's been a Rita finalist and has been listed for the Dublin Literary Award. Shelf awareness calls her not only one of the best, but one of the bravest romance novelists working today. Sonali lives in Chicagoland with her husband, two visiting adult children, and the world's most perfect dog. And this book was a Mindy's Book Studio publication. Welcome, Sonali. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's End of Time to Read Books again to discuss The Vibrant Ears, your latest novel. Congratulations.

[3:24]Sonali Dev: Thank you so much for having me, Zvi. It's always such a joy to speak with you. So I can't wait. Oh, yay.

[3:30]Zibby Owens: Okay. First of all, The Vibrant Years is a Mindy's Book Studio inaugural pick. Tell us about Mindy Kaling's Mindy's Book Studio, how it ended up at Amazon, like give me the whole rundown and what happened when you got picked and what that was like. So the whole backstory.

[3:46]Sonali Dev: Oh my gosh, that's gonna be like all of our thirty minutes. That's fine. Because as you can imagine, I think for me personally, the first thing to put out there is that, you know, I would have been thrilled to have any celebrity, right? Because that's your reach, right? What you want, the only thing an author wants, and certainly the only thing I want is more people to read my work. That's all I want. I just want millions and millions of people to read my work. And right now, one of the best ways, most effective ways for that to happen is, you know, to to have a celebrity get behind you, somebody who has a really big megaphone getting behind you. But the fact that it was Mindy, you know, I mean, it's impossible to explain how special that is and how meaningful because for almost for more than twenty years now, she has been, I think one of the most impressive writers to me. What she's able to do with humor mixed in with vulnerability and a very human place. Her humor comes from a place where we literally, you know, open ourselves up to exactly who we are all the way on the inside. And I think this is all the way from, The Office. My children are obsessed with The Office, like everybody else's, teenagers and, young adults. But I think that and the movement she has made. I know we've all all of us who are authors of color and haven't had space on the shelves, who've been told our voices aren't what everybody wants. She is someone who has actually moved that. She is someone who has changed the landscape for all of us. And so she's a very special figure even you know it just for me what I've looked to the pandemic, for me was something I survived so healthfully because of humor. So I sought it out. It literally was whether it was stories or TV or movies, that's what I sought out and that's what you know had me going to bed smiling at a time when that was hard to do. And so when I came out of the pandemic with my own writing, knew that was going to be one change I was going to make. I was going to make the effort to make people laugh, you know, while still telling the kind of stories I want to tell. But, making people laugh was such a healing thing I wanted to do it. And I I kind of took a lot of Mindy's work and analyzed it and kind of in terms of craft really got into it. Having said all of that, when I wrote The Vibrant Ears, I just wrote The Vibrant Ears as this story I wanted to tell, you know, everything I've ever wanted to say about being a woman. And it's one of those preparation meets opportunity things because Mindy was out there, you know, trying to again use her platform to get marginalized voices or voices that haven't had a megaphone out to people. And, and that was entirely serendipitous. And the way I found out the funny story is then my editor at, Lake Union at Amazon calls me or emails me on a Thursday and says, so Nali, I have really great news for you. Can we meet on Monday? And I said, what? I'm like, it's Thursday. Give me something. And she said, all I'll give you is that you're not going to be upset with me on on Monday for making you wait. And it was it was, you know, I think the most restless, excited weekend of my life. Wait. Why did why couldn't she tell you on Thursday? I think it was the day of announcement. You know? It was that that was a day that they could announce it. Okay. And and they wanted to announce it with Mindy's entire team on the phone call and, you know, that was. Okay. So it was the only time in my life for an entire hour that I was speechless, that phone call. And I was like, I can make words, you know, but right now I just need to be silent. I was completely, the words were completely, you know, delighted and shocked out of me. I talked a lot, you know, on subsequent calls, but I was completely silent. I was just shocked out of my mind and so thrilled. So it's been it's been great.

[7:57]Zibby Owens: Wow. And did you do you actually work with her? Like, have you gotten to know her?

[8:01]Sonali Dev: I have met her and hugged her, which is Aw. You know, we just probably like don't shower after that creepy thing. But but I've gotten to meet her and I have very strong, you know, opinions that are very inspirational about how she conducts herself, you know, and uses the space she has. But it's her team, that I have mostly worked with and they are, this is the most taken care of I have ever felt after almost a decade in publishing. And this is my ninth book and my I mean, my ninth full novel and my eleventh book. And it's been an absolute dream. And I don't mean that, you know, I mean that with 100% honesty.

[8:44]Zibby Owens: That's amazing. Is calling it the studio and then I wanna talk about this actual book. Does this mean that that these your book in particular, but all books is the plan for them to all become screen adaptations? Is this like a Hello Sunshine model?

[8:58]Sonali Dev: I think that that is the vision. I think that the stories are cinematic. I have read the one that comes after mine and it is absolutely brilliant. It's by Lauren Thorman and it's called I'll Stop the World and, it truly is, I'm not just saying that again because it is Mindy's Book Studio but it is this genre leaping kind of time travel, eighties nostalgia kind of book. And and I think that it's I think one of the things, of course, is to get voices that aren't, you know, to give them a megaphone, but also I think cinematic large, you know, stories that leap off the page and would make good screen adaptations is certainly one part of her vision.

[9:41]Zibby Owens: Wow. Okay. Now the Vibrant Years. Tell listeners what the Vibrant Years is about, please.

[9:47]Sonali Dev: So it it's a a story of three generations of women in Florida. And this, for me, one of the things was I I I like to say this is everything I've ever wanted to say about a woman. I mean, about being a woman. And, Bindu is what how I feel we are go you know, the the sixty five year olds I've seen, I always felt like like what I've seen in the media and in fiction, women after a certain age become have have been turned into tropes. They're either, you know, the the body sexy, for humor, you know, comedic relief grandmother or then this font of wisdom, you know, which feels like you're, you know, you're you're half a person and you don't stop being a full person as you age. And so, you know, your desire doesn't go away. Your your need for growth does doesn't go away, all of that. So so the grandmother is this hot, you know, hot sexy, very fun, grandmother who has just moved into a posh retirement community because she inherited a million dollars. And of course, doll the the money is related to something shameful from her past that completely changed the trajectory of her life. And her, daughter-in-law who is divorced from her son, she has chosen to live with her daughter-in-law after the divorce. So there is Ali who is, trying to make it in, broadcast journalism in television in, Florida and come up against all sorts of you know glass ceilings as a brown woman. And then there's Kali who is this, you know who has suffered, who's this genius coder and, she's always suffered from anxiety and at the age of 16 she finds, she writes an app to help herself and it becomes, and of course the app becomes a big thing. Right now millions of people use it, you know, to deal with their own anxiety on a day to day basis. And she's going to lose the, those people are going to lose that app because the company that she sold it to wants to slap a subscription fee on it. So to save her app, she pitches this half assed idea of a dating app that's based on self discovery, which comes from this conversation she has with her grandmother. And, of course, they lap it up. Problem is she's never dated in her life. And so now she has to come up with this app. And what better way to research existing dating apps than to have your, you know, your widowed grandmother and your divorced mom research them with you. So it's these three generations of women on the modern dating scene. And, yeah, and I think it's a metaphor for how far women have come because how we choose, how our grandmothers chose their life partners and how our daughters are choosing them is if that's not a paradigm shift and if that does not, is not a snap snapshot for how far we've now come in terms of choices, I don't know what it is. So I had a lot of fun with it. Wow.

[12:53]Zibby Owens: I know. I think about my grandmother and then how she ended up with my grandfather. And he, like, actively pursued her even though she wasn't really that into it. You know? She was like, I don't know. And I guess he'd asked her to go on some trip with him or something and or she had to go on a trip, and she didn't wanna go with him, and he was upset. Anyway, when she got home, he was sitting in her living room with her parents and was like, Look, it's mom and dad. You know? And she's like, What? And she's like, Oh, well, might as well. Anyway, that lasted, I don't know, thirty years or something. So it's just so funny. You know? And I think about my daughter and anyway, it's just crazy. Crazy. It's complete. It's like it's universes

[13:33]Sonali Dev: apart. It's you know? Yes. My my grandparents met in med school in colonial India. And, you know, and and they it was literally like they were they were from the same part of India, all of that, but different sub sub castes and their fam they had to elope. They've they had to run away. My great grandfather got after my grandfather with, you know, with a gun for ruining the family's honor. Oh my gosh. It was this whole drama. But, yes, completely, completely different time. But just even in terms of what women look for and how they look for it. Right? It it it's it's a it's it's the best metaphor for our entire like, how we live our lives now and how different is. I know all this customization.

[14:17]Zibby Owens: Does it actually work better? I don't know. That's like the big question. That's sort of everything.

[14:22]Sonali Dev: So much access. I mean, it's a swipe, right? So when you have, when the choices are infinite, you're still the one making the choice. And, you know, and and that the the pressure of that is a whole different thing. You know? It's true. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

[14:40]Zibby Owens: Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/zippy for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quince.com/zippy.

[17:02]Zibby Owens: And you're so funny the way you write about everything. I know you said you love Mindy's humor, and I feel like your own sense of humor is so great, especially the way you have entering the old age the vibrant years when you're so funny too, and you're like, why would you call it palm shade shady palms? Like palms don't even give you any shade. Like, what is up with that? You know? And also how even as a woman going into a, you know, retirement community, there is still that middle school anxiety about friend groups and cliques and, Oh, well, you know, all those women, they only want to talk to my friend and they don't want to talk to me. And, you know, it's like it doesn't go away. None of the things go away.

[17:43]Sonali Dev: They really don't. And I think that there's another whole layer that's added to immigration for one. Right? Because you're you're literally leaving your comfort zone to go into this new place. Now I have I have I have opinions about immigrant narratives. I think that there is a difference between my brother and I are, you know, we're just two of us. And always say he's a tree and I'm a nomad. And I think that there's an essential difference between a person who cannot or does not want to be outside of where they're planted and a person whose eyes are on what's outside. You know, what more is there? And so there is this inherent sense of adventure I think, that has to go with immigration, whether it comes from a place of being a refugee or just, you know, migrating for opportunity or whatever, you know, to leave your home and go to another place and make that your home. You just have to have a certain base DNA, you know, that is different. And having said that, the the sense of being an outsider is is a whole different level. Right? Because and that is, I think, a big difference between first generation and the immigrant itself. I have that life experience where I have children that are born and raised here. This is the only home they've known. I came here when I was a grown adult, you know, so there's a lot of nuance that goes into my books because I'm continuously exploring, you know, what that means in terms of the human journey. But for Bindu, I think that, you know, so many things that were absolutely not a possibility in the way that she was raised. And again, I think this is universal, right? What women were told about themselves back then and what is possible for us now is entirely different and we carry all that baggage right into this. And in the end it becomes about us laying down our conditioning because the world is no longer telling us to hold it but it's still armor that we've grown and, nurtured for so long. So I think for her also that idea that suddenly there's this whole world and there's this whole culture and, you know, that she has not gotten to be a part of. And her question is why? And when she was very young, she was this fearless person who completely owned her body and owned herself. And it was beaten out of her, you know, by circumstance as a very young person. And she put that little piece of herself away and then did the best she could. And now here she is. And she's like, the best I could is not, you know, is not all I can do. And so I think one of the reasons of that whole, I always think of it as standing outside a window with your nose pressed against the glass. And that sense is such a part of my life and I think everybody has this even as a child, the middle school thing, right? When you enter a room, you're entering it with this ball of ice in your stomach about how you're going to be seen, what that means. Right. And you're so conscious. And I think I used to, I used to have to chant to myself. There's no spotlight, there's no spotlight, you know, got over it. And I think that that's multiplied so many times over when you're the only brown person entering a room, you know? And that invisibleness that is really hard to explain. And I think so much of that is her and she's like, I'm not invisible, you know? And and and that experience is so much part of that. And it's hilarious because, you know, it's almost like stomping your foot and saying, I'm not invisible.

[21:21]Zibby Owens: Wow. That I mean, the juxtaposition, though, of not wanting to be invisible but also not wanting a spotlight on you. You know? It's like that happy medium. It was so funny. I used to be so shy about going to things like, you know, entering new friend group situations when I was younger and everything. And my mother would, you know, encourage me on in like sixth grade and say like, oh, but, Zibby, just be yourself. And I was like, well, who is that? Like, what on earth? I don't know. I'm like 12 years old. Leave me alone. Yeah. But there's no I think it takes until you're much older to realize, no, really nobody was paying attention to you back then at all. Everybody was just thinking about like themselves and how to get through the situation.

[22:01]Sonali Dev: Yeah. Everybody was, you know, sweating it themselves. They didn't have but what a gift to have those mothers, right? My mom was like that. She would literally like push me into situations. I mean, you know, whether it was friend groups, whether we were traveling and I was, you know, the, the, the adolescent shyness, I don't want to go ask the museum guy something like, you he's going think I'm an idiot. And she would make me do those things. Like she would push me and I used to hate it, but what a gift now when I look back, you know, at it. And I think another thing for me with this book and basically just our own relationships with our previous generations, I think is that sense of standing on their shoulders, right? Where they literally pushed us to have things that were not available to them. And when I think of what that took, right, none of us would be where we are. The world would not be what it is if these women hadn't had that level of generosity where they saw this is the world today. I get only this when my daughter will get more, she will be more and then my granddaughter will be more. And I think that to me that is incredibly important and to really, you know, give that form in fiction is, I'd say it's like one of my, you know, most important missions, just, you know, without sounding, terribly self important.

[23:27]Zibby Owens: I thought also it was so interesting, this relationship between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law, which can be an often completely fraught relationship. And then what happens after the fact? And the fact that not only are they in touch but living together for a while in the beginning. And, you know, what does it mean? What does that relationship how traditionally, it's always such a terrible relationship. I feel like everyone's always picking it apart, but it can be so amazing. So talk about that. I think, again, you know, we're

[23:59]Sonali Dev: told so many lies. Right from the day we're born. We are told so many lies about how we should look, who we need to be for everybody, you know, how other women are going to treat us. These are things we're literally told. I think, you know, even before we meet the person we're going to spend the rest of our lives with, we've been told you're going to hate your mother-in-law because she's going to be in competition with you. Right. We're just told that now there is so much history for why that is. And it's not always untrue, but there's so much history. It is the fact that, you know, traditionally women were given only the domestic space to succeed. And so of course there was a power struggle just the way at the office men have that power struggle. Right? But but when they go through it, it's just called work. And it's, you know, they're they're, you know, they're praised. Sorry. They're praised for, you know, for fighting that fight and finding their footing. And and in the domestic space, we are laughed at. Right? Oh, look at you women, you bicker. And oh, look at you women in this power struggle. That's literally our entire identity, right, generationally in the past. And so this thing was literally set up. We were set up, you know, and I always feel like my mother-in-law and I are as different, you know, being from the same culture culturally as different as two women can be. She has, you know, she's basically never left a one mile radius from the day she was born to I think the time that she was 70. She has she sleeps in a sari, right? She is so her world is has been very contained because of circumstance, right? And yet here I am this daughter-in-law who is outside of her comfort zone in every possible way. And the only thing I've ever gotten from her is acceptance and love and encouragement and the sense that you can do this. So why would you not? You know, and it is so beautiful and it's not just my mother-in-law, they're a joint family. So I have three mothers in law, you know, my, my father-in-law and his brothers and all of these women exactly like that. Right? So I literally feel this push from behind me that's also support. And anyone who tells me that that's not possible is, you know, it's, it's my life. My mom has the same relationship with her daughter-in-law, with my sister-in-law. My mom had the same kind of relationship with her mother-in-law. So it is we're being lied to now. Is there, you know, is there a whole, but I have that with my mom, you know, that whole you annoy me thing is natural. My daughter feels that way about me. I feel that way about my mom, but to translate that into, oh, you women always hate your mothers in law. This is power struggle over the man. I'm like, really? Like this prince is who we're all fighting over? That's what you want us to believe that we don't have the brains to know ourselves and we're fighting over this this man who is our gift? So it's you know, I mean, we have to, I think, so so much of Ali and, Bindu was that. You know, there was so much, and they both treat each other with such care. They both have taken the time to develop their relationship outside of the sun. And, and he has to deal with that, you know, for him again. I mean, the the patriarchy in this whole, structure of society harms men just as much. And I think there's a lot of that in this book where there's so much he wants to do and cannot do because being the breadwinner is his entire identity which comes from the same place. And so I think that, you know, that that that was, something again I had so much fun playing with. Amazing.

[27:44]Zibby Owens: When we were chatting before, you said you have been hard at work on your next novel. Tell me about that.

[27:50]Sonali Dev: Oh, boy. A little bit. The vibrant years, you know, is the first time I've written like out and out comedy because, of course, you know, writing dates, updates is you can't you know, it's it's fiction. You can't come up with anything more bizarre and fiction than happens in real life. But this one is a little bit more little bit more, sanky, you know, somber, I think. It's a story of a best friendship. These girls who, you know, had a friendship where they thought they were each other's soulmates, since they were 12 years old. And they get into a surrogacy arrangement because one of them is unable to, carry a baby and their friendship breaks up over at twenty seven years ago. And, now the daughter is 27 and she has gone missing and it's this coming back together of this this great love of their lives that they lost over, you know, over over motherhood and this deal that they made. Oh my gosh. That sounds amazing.

[28:55]Zibby Owens: So what else? You're managing all these, like, 8,000,000 things. Is it mostly writing and marketing of the book and any other projects down the line?

[29:04]Sonali Dev: I mean, as of now, I think it is this. I was just I I I am like I said, when we first started talking, I'm very intense. I'm a feast and famine writer. So I had the best time, you know, with the vibrant years. It has I have had some amazing experiences. Got to be, you know, on the Drew Barrymore show, on GMH, like the whole it's just it's been like, you know, in terms of stories I will tell my grandchildren. It has been so great, and I did that. And then my edits have come in. And and these, you know, these three weeks, I'm completely lost to it. And I complain about, you know, about how immersive it is, how I, you know, don't even have time to take a shower. But I think it's one one of my favorite things about my life that I get to do that, that I get to completely lose myself and I don't need to be human in my life outside of that. And I'm just right now having so much so much fun with that. But, you know, come the next year, I have a whole I have an idea, and, it's on to the next one. Again, thus far, I've been really blessed that a story is usually knocking at, you know, my conscience long before I start writing it, and I hope that never changes. That would be my one wish. So it's it's just this on to the next book, and I have, you know, a 21 year old and a 23 year old. And I'm here to tell you, Zidions, that that does not mean that they stop needing you and the crises stop. So I think I'm a very, very filtered down focused person. It's my writing. It's my children, you know, and the family and really everything else. It it If it's there, it's there. If it's not there, it's not there. I'm able to really like make myself that tiny.

[30:57]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. I love it. And yes, I've heard that about kids. And I'm trying not to I mean, I think it would be sad if all of a sudden the communication stopped anyway. So I'm prepared. I'm prepared for it to not stop, and I love that. Sonali, I'm so excited for you. I've been watching as this whole ride has happened and all these great things that have gone on with this book and everything and just like

[31:22]Sonali Dev: my heart's been swelling for you. I'm just so excited. So anyway. Thank you so much. And same, I mean, you are a mile a minute, the among the people, and everything you do for writers. And you're, you know, you're publishing now, and I am so excited to follow along. So thank you so much for all you do. Of course. All right. Take care.

[31:46]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.