By Khalida Sarwari
New York Times best-selling author Shilpi Somaya Gowda will make the trek from her home in San Diego to Saratoga at the end of the month to discuss her books at the Montalvo Arts Center, but the visit probably won’t be as electrifying as the sights and sounds she experienced on her recent trip to India.
The novelist’s fans will be happy to know she was there to do research for an upcoming novel that she’s working on, one that’s still incomplete and doesn’t have a name but will be a family drama similar to her first and second novels.
“The kind of research I do, it’s not very specific book research; it’s more I like to understand what life in rural India is like,” she said.
On Jan. 31, Montalvo will host Gowda for a noontime conversation with Katherine Maxfield, an author in her own right who penned “Starting Up Silicon Valley.” Gowda plans to discuss her first and second books, “Secret Daughter” and “The Golden Son.”
“Son,” which was published in 2016, tells the story of Anil Patel, a young man who grows up in rural India and leaves home to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor in America, leaving behind his childhood friend, Leena, whose parents arrange for her marriage. The story parallels their two separate lives until their paths cross again when they’re adults. When Anil’s father dies, he becomes the head of his family’s household and inherits the arbiter role for the village’s disputes, but he finds himself uneasy with the custom and uncertain that he has the wisdom his father and grandfather displayed.
Gowda said she was inspired to write the book upon learning about the Indian system of informal dispute resolution.
“It’s a system called pangaya, a council of five village elders who would serve as informal judge and jury for whatever was coming up in the community, and even though there are now formal judicial systems, that practice continues in a lot of communities and families,” she said.
“I just thought it was really fascinating to just kind of explore this way of a community solving its own disputes,” Gowda added. “There’s something interesting that happens when people have to sort out their problems and then they have to go back to living next to each other or in their homes.”
The character of Anil was built around this concept of informal dispute resolution, and embodied the question of what a character would do with that responsibility. In general, that’s the approach Gowda said she takes with all her characters.
Shilpi Somaya Gowda will discuss her recent book The Golden Son and her 2010 bestseller Secret Daughter with moderator Katherine Maxfield at the Montalvo Arts Center on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, 11:30 a.m. (Photograph courtesy of Stacy Bostrom Photography)
“I try very hard to do that, to be able to put myself in another character’s shoes and see the world from their point of view,” she said. “I try to find a kernel of something that I can relate to emotionally, and I think … there is always a way in through empathy and experience.”
This will mark Gowda’s first appearance at Montalvo. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, the Canadian received her undergraduate degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Stanford, after which she worked in business for 15 years before switching to writing full time.
The conversation will take place Jan. 31 at 11:30 a.m. Tickets are $60 and include lunch and wine. Books will be available for purchase.
For more information about the event or to purchase tickets, visit montalvoarts.org/events/shilpi_gowda/home.
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Montalvo to host NY Times best-selling novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda
