We chat with author Nanda Reddy about her debut novel A Girl Within A Girl Within A Girl, which follows a girl who takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layers of secrets, until years later when she is forced to reckon with her past.
Hi, Nanda! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a watercolor hobbyist, runner, hiker, avid traveler, former fourth-grade teacher, consummate audiobook reader, and mom.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve devoured books since discovering libraries, and I privately wrote poetry in high school. But it wasn’t until college that I started playing with the idea of writing, perhaps because story ideas began to come to me.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Ramona Quimby, by Beverly Cleary, in fourth grade when I arrived to the US at age nine and entered my first library. Must have checked it out out dozens of times.
- The one that made you want to become an author: White Oleander, by Janet Fitch for its magical, lyrical prose.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand because of the power it once wielded over me.
Your debut novel, A Girl Within A Girl Within A Girl, is out March 4th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Riveting, tense, redemptive, lyrical, and emotional.
What can readers expect?
Secrets, lies, snapshots of rural Guyana and rural Miami in the 80s, lots of 80s references, friendships, family tensions, scenes with abuse, and a character who battles through hardships by reinventing herself.
Where did the inspiration for A Girl Within A Girl Within A Girl come from?
The rough idea popped into my head after a tour guide once mistook me for South Asian and I didn’t correct him. I wanted to write a story about identity centering a Guyanese-American woman, which is what I am. I hoped to explore the erasing aspects of assimilation, to show how and why a person might reinvent herself completely, severing herself from her personal history.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved exploring the positive relationships in the book. I loved writing Sunny’s sisterhood with Roshi, her friendship with Yvonne, her first love with Marcus, and even her complicated relationship with Janna. I also enjoyed mining Maya and Dwayne’s love, which scaffolds and buoys the story when things get heavy.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I wanted to show varied aspects of 80s Guyana and to introduce Guyanese people without sterotyping the country. I tried to achieve this by making the characters singular and honest enough that they, hopefully, don’t carry the mantle of representation.
I grappled with the abuse scenes as they emerged. I wanted to write them with honesty, without gratuity, centering on emotion and Sunny’s reaction more than the acts.
I also had trouble balancing the present and past in early drafts. Initially, I’d imagined this book with more frontstory, adult Sunny as Maya actively hiding her secrets, etc. But as the backstory emerged and took over, I knew I needed to trim and shape the frontstory into a meaty scaffold for the backstory, and that’s what you get in the final published book.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
I often remind people that, although this is my first published novel, this isn’t the first novel I’ve written. I have three shelved manuscripts, all of which taught me to write. It’s been a slow, steady march to this point, one made a little slower by full time motherhood and me learning the craft on my own. But I don’t regret a step.
What’s next for you?
I am currently at work on my sophomore novel. Another novel about identity. Another nail biter.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
I try to read 100 books a year and generally look forward to the big literary prize winners and longlists, as well as books from my favorite authors. But I get distracted by celebrity bookclub picks and hyped books, so it’s hard to keep up. A few titles have been patient in my queue, and I hope to get to them this year. Among those: Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar; All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker; Same as it Ever Was, by Claire Lombardo; The Mothers, by Brit Bennett; The Covenent of Water, by Abraham Verghese; The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson; Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr; Playground, by Richard Powers, and Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
