Naheed Phiroze Patel: On Story Structure, the Impact of Translation, Fractal Symmetry and Her Debut Novel, "Mirror Made of Rain"
In Naheed Phiroze Patel’s debut novel, Mirror Made of Rain, we meet Noomi as she fights the expectations of changing her hard-partying lifestyle. Her relationship with Veer, while stabilizing, cracks open a host of wedding traditions that force her to examine tradition in India and her relationships - namely with her mother. Naheed's sharp characters and dynamic scene building pull us into her main character, Noomi’s world. Following Noomi's journey of exploration, Naheed navigates mental health, generational trauma, addiction, and societal expectations.
Mirror Made of Rain couldn't be better named. Reading the book is an act of holding a mirror to yourself - an experience that Naheed has found with so many readers that have already devoured her work. Naheed and I spoke via zoom about story structure, the importance of good creative collaboration, and how translation has impacted her work.
Laura Guidry: Did you meet the characters first in your mind? Or did you decide I'm going to write about the complexities of family, and did the characters come from that nugget?
Naheed Phiroze Patel: It was always important to me to complicate any narrative and look at relationships in a way that kind of subverted certain ideas of motherhood or what a family looks like, specifically, what an Indian family looks like. I began writing the novel in my MFA program, and there were questions that came up in the workshop, which kind of gave me a sort of direction into which I could lean if I wanted to. Whatever questions I found interesting, I tried to answer them in my writing. And, you know, questions always lead to more questions. It's in the revision, in the rewriting, that really the dimensionality of each character kind of evolves. So, I can't really pinpoint any one method that I used to create this world.
LG: I will say I have never wanted to punch a character more than Sid and some of the guys in your book. I thought that it was just so interesting that the reader realizes some of the trauma that your main character, Noomi, goes through even before she realizes it.
NPP: That's a really beautiful way of putting it. And I think that it's so interesting you felt like that because I've had both sides of that reaction. The one thing about the book is that it activates so much internalized misogyny in some people who just hate Noomi. They're like, 'Oh my God, she's such a troublemaker. Poor Sid, poor Golden Boy, you know, she ruined his engagement.' This reaction is not just from men but also from women. I just found that really fascinating that they were able to frame it in that way. One thing that was really important to me in writing was that I didn't want to put my hand on the scales; I didn't want to give any kind of a leading description or to prime the reader to think a certain way. I feel like I tried really hard to give the reader enough space to kind of come to their own conclusions. So, it's interesting when the analysis is so diverse in terms of how they feel about certain characters.
LG: That must be such an interesting experience for a writer to be like, 'I created this whole world, and everybody reacts to it so differently.'
NPP: We were playing around with ideas for a title last year. The book came out in India around this time, and my editor in India had a huge hand in how the book eventually shaped up in terms of structure. He was the one who first noticed this motif of mirrors, and he was like, 'We should have mirror in the title.' As I've been talking about it with readers, I do feel like the book is like a mirror in some way, the metaphor works because people do tend to see what they want to see or look for themselves in the characters and in the book. I think a lot of what is said about the book is a reflection of how a person feels about themselves.
LG: *mind blown* I did love how mirrors popped up. There was that one line where you write, 'Mothers are our first mirrors.' I thought that was beautiful because Noomi, is going through this realization that she's turning into the darker parts of her mother and that she's also dealing with mental illness. She's also dealing with addiction. I just think that was such an impactful journey to watch her kind of say, 'Oh, no, I'm not like that at all. My mother is.' Then all of a sudden, through her journey, the reader sees, 'OK, you're repeating some patterns, you're kind of becoming your mom.'
NPP: I think that it was a conscious decision on my part to not make Noomi incredibly reflective. She doesn't have an aha moment. I tried to make it so the reader sees things that she's not able to see in herself. You have her saying it again and again that I don't want to be my mother. But the reality is so different, and she doesn't perceive that. I think the end is ambiguous, but yeah, that was a conscious choice on my part to make her non-self-reflexive or not interested in self-interrogation.
LG: I really enjoyed that as a reader. It was a more honest look at a family and at a person than someone who goes, 'I've had a mindful awakening, and turns out, I'm destructive.'
NPP: Yes.
LG: So much of the book follows Noomi's and her mother's mental health journey. It's so complex, and there is such symmetry in their stories. In writing, do you typically outline, or did this come out in drafting?
NPP: I've always been obsessed with fractal symmetry—the pattern that appears when a mirror cracks or in lightning, rivers, roots, and branches. I thought a lot about how people's lives seem to be constantly unfolding in a fixed design. Perhaps subconsciously, I wanted Asha and Noomi's lives to reflect that repetitive symmetry—as it generates its own kind of narrative energy.
LG: I'm curious, though, about the structure of your book because there are no chapters, but there are parts, right?
NPP: That's a great question. As I mentioned earlier, my editor in India had a huge part to play in how the book was structured. Structure is something that I've always kind of stumbled with. I've never been good at structure because I don't really buy into the whole idea of like conflict being the engine that drives plot. It's always kind of bothered me. I feel like there are many books, especially books that are not, you know, centered on the Western canon, that are from different cultures that do not use conflict always as like this sort of turbine that is going to be driving the plot forward. So in my book, there's no – I mean—I guess you could say there is the central conflict of addiction or the question of does Noomi ever figure out who she really is? But no conflict in the way we understand it in American literature. So, we struggled for a long time. But I love the way that it's structured now because it's almost like a play in three parts. You have one part ending, and the curtain lifts, and there's something else. And then again, the curtain drops.
LG: I am also a writer who struggles with structure. I love it, and I hate it. It's so hard. I'm curious how did the manuscript you sold look different than the final edit?
NPP: Wow. Yeah. I think that without getting into too many details and boring everybody - the draft that got me my agent was definitely not the draft we sent out on submission. It was constantly changing and evolving. We went out on submission at an unfortunate time. We went out like literally like March 13th, 2020.
For a while, I just completely forgot that this book existed because it was just so terrifying. I was living in New York City at the time, and the spring of 2020 was one of the scariest times. Anyway, coming back to drafts. So, yeah, you know, we didn't hear anything for a long time. Nothing happened. In the meanwhile, the book was acquired in India, and I began working on it. My editor, he's just an amazing guy. He also had acquired Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar, which came out in India as Girl in White Cotton. He was the first person to read and acquire that book as well. He's got an amazing eye for good writing. So, we began working together, and he's like, 'You know, I think we should do it this way. And I think that this part, we can move.' It was like a jigsaw puzzle. We had all these great scenes, all of these great pieces. We just had to figure out how they would all fit together. It was a collaborative process between him and me. This novel is finally what we came up with, which felt like the truest to the story.
LG: Writing can be so solitary, but your working relationship with your editor shows just how productive and incredible a good collaboration can be. Can you talk to me about your experience working with him and how you knew you had the right creative partner for your work?
NPP: I think this is where having a great agent who understands the project and has a good sense of your literary tastes and working style is so important. The agent is essentially a matchmaker between you and the editor, so they have to have a deep working knowledge of the industry as well. I am lucky to have had two such fantastic agents: one for the US and one for South Asia. They both matched me with the perfect editors for this project.
LG: This process required such creative stamina, and I'm curious how in your daily life, you kept coming back to the story and to the page.
NPP: I think at some point, I was driven by sheer stubbornness. You know, it was just like, 'No, I'm not going to stop until this book is done.' I knew this story had something in it, and I knew that it would resonate with readers. It becomes like, you know, a dog on the scent of something. Once you're engaged in that mode, you just become intractable. Or at least I do. It was really doggedness that kind of kept me going for a long time because, for a long time, all we were hearing was no. I think a lot of it is also when something is different, or something is new, it takes people a while to enjoy it or understand it. You have to believe that you're going to find your reader. And that your readers are going to be smart enough to get it. They're going to get what you're trying to say. If somebody's not picking up what you're putting down, that's unfortunate, but that shouldn't stop you or deter you from saying what you want to say.
LG: I love that so much. There's always that conversation around MFA versus no MFA. You chose to do an MFA, and I'm curious how that has impacted your journey as a writer?
NPP: This is a question that a lot of people have asked me, and I think it's interesting. The MFA ecosystem only really exists in the US; in India, there's no such degree. The idea of doing an MFA was always just the idea of having two years or more to do nothing but write? It seemed amazing. But also, I think that there are a lot of personal elements to that decision. For me, it was the right decision because it gave me the time and space to create something. And also, I found wonderful mentors, not just among my professors but among my peers as well in the program. The other huge thing that I would never have discovered if I hadn't done an MFA was translation. I read online somewhere that language is also behavior. I'm really interested in translation; it has opened up my brain to the different ways in which language works. It trained me to look very closely at language and how to controvert language. It really likes bent my mind in interesting ways, which I would never have discovered if I had not done an MFA.
LG: I'm also so curious because people typically think, 'Oh, I am going to sell my North American rights, and then I'm going to sell foreign rights.' And you published in India first, and then now your book is coming out in the US. I'm curious why you and your agent made that choice or kind of how that came about.
NPP: Because the book is based in India, and I have roots in India, and I actually had two separate agents. My US agent handles my foreign rights and US rights. And I had another agent who deals extensively with South Asian rights. They were very instrumental in me connecting me with my editor in India. And, you know, it was always a book meant for Indian readers because they would get the cultural nuances. But I was really pleasantly and wonderfully surprised at how so many readers like you, with no or little cultural ties to India, had no difficulty in navigating this novel's world. And same with my agent here. She immediately got the smaller, you know, almost imperceptible nuances that this book kind of hinges on, and that was really wonderful for me. So, the way it worked was that it just happened to be sold in India first. And because of the tragedy that was unfolding in the US, it just kind of lingered on people's desks for a long time here. We came close a couple of times. But I say this without hyperbole that Unnamed press is the best home this book could have ever had because they are so very bold. My US editor has been fantastic. She's been so supportive, and she's just been like a real champion of this book. I think that you know, in a lot of times, I've heard that in a bigger press, your book can get kind of get lost in the weeds. But I've received wonderful, wonderful attention and care for this book, and it went through yet another hundred edits. So, It's a different book than the one that came out in India.
LG: The book is an Indian book, and it's not written in a watered-down version – there aren't asides explaining each cultural moment. I really loved that choice you made as a writer to be like: No, this is what I'm writing, and you'll keep up if you want to keep up.
NPP: I thank you for taking that extra step to Google stuff that didn't immediately call to mind something. And again, I thank translation for this because if you read writing in translation and how unapologetically themselves these writers are and how much they don't want to cater to a Western gaze or any sort of gaze for that matter. Even in the translation seminars, you know, if you don't understand something, you were told to Google it - it's right there. It's not difficult. The world is all connected now.
LG: It's not like go find an encyclopedia and figure it out.
NPP: Yeah, you don't have to go to a library and ask a librarian to look up a certain like, you know, esoteric ritual or something. It's all in the palm of your hand if you're curious. But I do think that I simplified things enough that a reader would get the gist of what is going on. They could understand that this particular ritual seems a little misogynistic or that this family dynamic skews a bit unfair. You don't have to have Google open on the side while reading.
LG: What's next for you, and what you're working on right now?
NPP: I've been finishing up a lot of essays, and I have this one craft essay coming out in LitHub soon, which I'm super excited about as it's my first essay on writing. And yeah, so you know, a little bit of nonfiction essays that are engaging with the books. There's a lot of stuff I'm doing to promote, like interviews and engaging with readers in any way I can. I have this kind of a seed or an idea for my next book, but I haven't really been able to commit anything to paper. I read somewhere that the way you start the year as you end it. So, New Year's Eve, at midnight, I sat down and wrote the first paragraph of what I think is going to be my next novel. But I'm superstitious about it, but yeah, hopefully, there'll be something soon.
Naheed Phiroze Patel is a graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University's School of the Arts. Her writing has appeared in the New England Review, The Guardian, HuffPost, Scroll.in, BOMB Magazine, Public Books, PEN America, The Rumpus, EuropeNow Journal, Asymptote Journal and elsewhere.