Blue Boy (31 page)

I would like to thank

Kim Dasher gave me the incredible gift of finishing my first draft within the comfy confines of her apartment. Ursula Cary, Kendra Harpster, Beth Haymaker, and Alex Lane all read early drafts of this novel and gave me helpful feedback.

Last but never least, a million thanks go to Chris Henry, BFF extraordinaire, for finding the humor in everything. It’s so easy.

A READING GROUP GUIDE

BLUE BOY

Rakesh Satyal

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Rakesh Satyal’s
Blue Boy
.

Kiran spends a large part of the novel being very studious. What role do his studies play in his general behavior? Why does he focus his attention on such things?


Kiran uses specific words often and also highlights others that he likes particularly. How does language figure into Kiran’s intellectual life? His emotional life?


Kiran’s relationships with his parents differ greatly. How would you describe his relationship with his mother? With his father? Does one parent love him more than the other, or are their manners of loving just different?


The town in which Kiran lives, Crestview, is described in detail. What sort of town is it? What is the demographic of the inhabitants? And how does that demographic differ from Kiran’s family? From the other Indian families?


Kiran has very strong reactions to both female figures and male figures. How are his reactions different? With women, in particular, how does their treatment of him affect his self-perception? For example, how are the teachers in his school and the other Indian mothers similar and different?


How knowledgeable is Kiran about Hinduism? About other religions? Does he fully understand them, or does he view them differently depending on his mood?


Kiran asserts that American life has more of an impact on him than Indian life, but is that really true? Which culture informs Kiran’s behavior more—American culture or Indian culture?


How would you describe Kiran’s sexuality? Is he hyper-sexual, or does he simply feel that way because of his confining surroundings? Is he fully gay?


What role do names play in this book? And furthermore, what role does name
calling
play in this book?


Is Kiran a happy child? A sad child? How about at the beginning of the novel versus at the end of the novel?

Please turn the page for a special

Q&A with Rakesh Satyal!

Why do you feel that your work is particularly relevant and timely?

Indian American literature has remained relatively serious until now. There is plenty of wonderful, very moving work in the genre, but I do not feel that the genre has a fair share of
playful
literature, along the lines of what has happened with Hispanic American literature or even East Asian American literature. This book is a little more humorous and playful with the genre, and that is why I believe that it has something new to offer.

How much of the main character, Kiran, is based on you?

I would say that more of the events closer to the beginning of the novel resemble my own childhood. (The Abraham Lincoln story, for example, is one widely known by my friends.) Certainly, I share Kiran’s imagination and his urge to be creative and, like him, I engaged in many rather flamboyant activities as a child, including (but not limited to) singing, dancing, doing visual art, etc. But as a writer and especially as an editor familiar with the world of publishing and the specifics of real life-translated-to-fiction, I was very careful to make Kiran very much Kiran and to distance him from my own life. For example, I have two brothers, whereas Kiran is an only child; my parents are quite different from the parents in the book. That said, I wanted to make sure that the reader could see quite clearly how Kiran could be a product of those two parents but not necessarily be
like
them.

Do you feel that you are “making fun” of Hinduism?

Not at all. I believe in many of Hinduism’s rather wondrous elements. One of those elements, directly and indirectly, is a real sense of spectacle, and my aim in the novel is to show how a young child already prone to hyperbole and extravagance would interpret that magic in his own life. At no point in the novel could one say that Kiran approaches Hinduism with bad intentions or doubts Krishna’s power; he approaches the religion with the utmost reverence, as did I while writing the story, and at the end, we see him comforted by the religion because it is really his only true friend.

How do you fit your writing life into your job as an editor?

People ask me this a lot because they assume that I never sleep and that I am a total workaholic. This is definitely not the case. (I spend way too much time watching
Lost
and marathons of
America’s Next Top Model
that I’ve already seen a million times for that to be true.) I work hard at my job but try to get my work done at the office and somewhat at home during the weekdays. I try to be creative every day in some way, and I generally work in spurts, so I’ll do a lot of writing one weekend and then do a cabaret show another week and then pleasure read a lot another week; it’s all a give-and-take. I am either too scattered or too lazy to write every day (as 99 percent of writing instructors would suggest), so I have to figure out how to fit it in on my own creative time.

What do you want people to take away from your book after having read it?

Most importantly, I want them to have laughed good-heartedly. And I want them to have seen the world somewhat differently—to understand how hard childhood can be for the culturally and sexually marginalized but also how such isolation affords a child a very strong sense of self.