|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
On the wall of Parini Shroff’s home office in Mountain View is a framed copy of the first short story she ever wrote. The tale is called “The Magic Hole” and she wrote it at age 7.
The piece is a reminder to Shroff of how she got her start as a writer as a child growing up in Los Altos. Now she’s a USA Today bestselling author for her debut novel “The Bandit Queens,” published in 2023. The book, which is in the dark humor fiction genre, follows women who seek revenge against their abusive husbands. The following year, the book was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
She published her latest work, “Some People,” on July 7. The story follows Malti, an Indian woman living in Silicon Valley who suffers a concussion. She is forced to stay under the care of her daughter Kavya’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, Nathan, because Kavya is away at graduate school in India. Shroff puts her characters in a pressure cooker where she explores topics like cultural misunderstandings, assimilation, privilege and childhood baggage.
Shroff began her professional writing career after paying off her loans from law school at Loyola Marymount University in Southern California. She earned her master’s in fine arts from the University of Texas at Austin. Shroff still practices contract law part time, but reserves her mornings for novel writing.
She has done various writing residencies, including at Djerassi in Woodside.
Embarcadero Media spoke with Shroff about “Some People” and how she formed her love of books as a child at Woodland Library in Los Altos where she devoured “The Boxcar Children,” “Sweet Valley High,” “Nancy Drew,” “The Baby-Sitters Club,” “Fear Street” and other series.
The following interview has been condensed for clarity and space.
Embarcadero Media: How did you get into writing as an attorney?
Parini Shroff: I practiced law to get out of the debt that the law degree put me in. Once I paid off my loans, I felt like a free agent.
I was like, ‘I wanna pursue creative writing’ and pick up … where I left off when I was a younger person. I’m glad I waited. … I had maybe more to write about at that point in my life.
I knew that one thing I could do would be practicing part time that would support the writing, so that I could eat, but also satisfy the creative drive.
Thankfully it worked out.
Embarcadero Media: What inspired the book?
Shroff: I’m engaged, and therefore I’ve been recently fascinated by this idea of in-laws and those dynamics. They’re forced family. You’re meant to treat them like family, and they are family, but they’re not with your family.
In tandem with that was the notion that I’m someone who’s constantly triangulating. I’m seeking how to keep the peace.
I was toying with the idea of ‘what if that common person in an in-law dynamic is removed and the people who share that common person are forced to reckon with each other without a mediator?’
Embarcadero Media: When did you start working on the book?
Shroff: I wrote it in the summer of 2024. This book was very unusual for me in that it came out very quickly. … I was just grateful to be caught along the ride.
Embarcadero Media: Where do you write?
Shroff: I write predominantly in my office. I wish I could be the kind of person who writes in coffee shops, or who can go with a group and have joint writing sessions. But I need quiet, and I need to be alone. I don’t like breathing or noise around me because it helps with the escapism. You dive into the story. You’re in your character’s mind.
Embarcadero Media: What advice do you have for transitioning from working on short stories to a full novel?
Shroff: For me, the ‘Bandit Queens’ started off as a short story. I revised it and revised it, and I cleared away for several years. I had enough distance to look at the four corners of the page and want to know more.
What makes novels most interesting are characters. If you just sit with that character, and write something from their perspective … to really get to know them and their bones, then you can put them in the world and have them navigate situations and that maybe that will allow a larger work to unspool.
Embarcadero Media: Who are your favorite authors?
Shroff: I love Britt Bennett. I love Lily King. Toni Morrison. I love James McBride. I have humor in my work, and he’s funny. I love Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith.
Embarcadero Media: Are you working on any other books at the moment?
Shroff: I’m working on something new. A sequel to the ‘Bandit Queens.’
Years after what I thought was pencils down with the ‘Bandit Queens,’ the women’s voices just started talking in my head when I was writing ‘Some People,’ so I opened up a fresh notebook and started taking notes. Once I was done with ‘Some People’ I turned back to the women of the ‘Bandit Queens.’
“Some People,” Parini Shroff. Penguin Random House. Hardcover: $26.41, E-book: $13.99. parinishroff.com.
