Dearest Reader!

 Sujata Massey 

Berkeley, CA

I’ve been thinking quite a lot these days about human connection. 

Apparently, a loneliness epidemic is worsening--even though the pandemic is over.  Twenty years ago, most Americans felt they had more close friends than they do today. In addition to the pandemic cutting down on gatherings that never got restarted, we might also consider the ubiquitous presence of social media—and overwhelming YouTube and entertainment streaming options, and online games—and filling space. All this is an effortless replacement for the risk of reaching out to real people. 

But I am not here to judge. The loneliest time in my life was my years from age seven to eighteen. I was in the American Midwest, a place that has changed considerably since the 1970s. During my childhood I was an outcast because I didn’t look like or have the same interests as my peers. Plus, I sucked at gym games. 

My parents did all they could by giving me chances to take extracurricular lessons and summer camp. In these arenas, I was well-liked and happy. Yet every day I went to my elementary/junior high/high school, my stomach knotted. I didn’t have anyone I could count on sitting with at lunch, and I had the added fear of not knowing if I was going to be bullied. Words have the power to be so hurtful! 

St Paul, MN

And there are other miracles that come through words.

I started reading fluently and with exuberant joy in first grade. By second grade, I was unstoppable. And while I don’t want to be as corny as to say books were my friends, the fact is that I could depend on them more than anything else in my life. And within the pages, I felt aligned and that I had faraway friends among my favorite protagonists. I loved Sara Crewe, the little girl marooned without parental support in a cruel boarding school in Victorian London in Frances Hodgson-Burnett’s A Little Princess. I was captivated by a young Laura Ingalls, who like me, suffered through brutal Minnesota weather without much social contact outside of her own family. Small things Laura was crazy for like maple syrup on snow, or a hand-whittled toy, or an orange at Christmas, made me wish for the same. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield had three orphans under guardianship in London becoming child stars in acting and ballet, glamorous arenas that I certainly thought should become my career goals. Another British author, Rumer Godden, delighted me first with her stories featuring doll characters, and then with middle-grade stories about girls who were also fishes out of water.

Juvenile fiction is the most impactful fiction I’ve read—I take it very seriously. It helped me survive, and it shaped my character. But teen reading was great, too. Adolescence meant being able to read and fully bask in the glory of the best adult fiction. Some of the most transporting books were by young authors and featured coming of age themes. The year I was sixteen I found a used-bookstore copy of Bonjour Tristesse (translated into English, it means Hello, Sorrow) published in the 1950s when its author, Francoise Sagan, was about the same age. This story about a girl’s disillusionment in her philandering father, and her own bold decision to take a lover for herself, takes place on the France’s Côte D’Azur, an area that stayed in my imagination and that I’ll finally visit in a few months. Another great read from my high school years was This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: the author’s debut novel about a young man leaving my own city of Saint Paul to go to Princeton. I recall his struggle to find himself socially, and to find love in a new sophisticated world. There I was, seeing a dreamy vision of escape for myself, too. 

Yes, these books were my friends. And reading them made me feel so warm toward the authors. I wanted to ask them, what made you write this book? Is your protagonist you—because I really like them! 

Minneapolis MN

For a reader to meet an author of a  beloved book is a rare occurrence. What happens between a reader and a favorite book is intensely personal; it’s hard to express, even with a glass of wine at book club. Admiration, tenderness, distain and anger—we feel all of this while reading, and we are somehow linked in a relationship with the person who made these people.

I’ve experienced all of this as a reader. I also feel the emotion when I have my author hat on get to meet people through book signings and online book club presentations, and letters.

Lawrence, Kansas

Today fan letters don't travel in envelopes to publishers, but as emails to authors. Here are some I’ll never forget:

The email from a young woman in Finland, as miserable in school as I was, who submersed herself in Rei Shimura books which were published between 1997 and 2012. She was contemplating dropping out of school but stayed because her parents promised her a trip to Japan, if she did graduate. Her books were her comfort; and that brought tears to my eyes. The second letter I received was a few years later, post-Japan. She’d loved her time there and was thinking about a future possibility of working there—perhaps like my protagonist Rei Shimura. 

Another reader I recall was a man in his seventies, originally from India. He drove six hours with his wife at his side to a signing I did in San Diego. Not only did the two readers care about the books; they also had detected through careful reading of acknowledgements, my father’s identity. You see, my dad had studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, just as the reader had done, a few years earlier, and in the exact same field. Thus—a kinship network arose--and to that gentleman, I was as good as any niece who'd written a book!

Los Angeles

Just the other day, I received an email from a retired teacher in Hawaii who with his wife had gone traveling to India, visiting many sites in Mumbai that correspond to my character Perveen Mistry’s exploits. The concierge at their hotel wanted to help with any need, so on a whim they asked her to phone up Mistry Law. Could not be arranged, the concierge reported with an apology, not realizing she was playing a part in a comedy that would be later submitted to me via email. You are a mischief maker! I wrote back to him. 

The greatest thing that ever happens when I release a book is the chance to meet the readers. They are the only thing that keeps me going, that gives me the blood circulation I need to attempt another work of fiction.

I start a national tour next week to promote my new Perveen Mistry novel, The Star From Calcutta. I’ll tell you about its plot next time, because right now I am overwhelmed with tour preparations. The most wide-ranging tours involve a lot of flying, often with airport show times as early as 5 a.m. There are meals that are unpleasant or missed altogether, unfamiliar beds in sterile (if you’re lucky) hotels and unpredictable Uber rides. But I tour because of the readers, the independent booksellers, and I hope to see some of you guys in  some of these cities.

New York, NY