The Things That We Lost

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I definitely connected with this book and with the characters due to my Gujarati heritage. I recognised a lot of Gujarati traditions, words and phrases which are so familiar to me and it was so refreshing seeing them written in a book.

I didn’t have a super clear idea of which direction the novel would go in when I began writing, but I knew that these themes would be integral. There are other antagonists too, and Avani and Nik aren’t always their best selves. However, you get to know the pair well enough to realise that their behaviour while experiencing a series of significant upheavals isn’t representative of their whole characters. I could particularly identify with their feelings about Rohan’s house, which Avani has to empty and put on the market. In The Things That We Lost, Jyoti Patel has given us two fully realised characters in Nik and Avani. Neither mother, Avani, nor son, Nik, are without flaws and both are dealing in their own ways with the grief of losing Elliott, their husband and father respectively. They ultimately need each other but are too busy shutting each other out to see this. For this reason, I loved the grandfather character who worked so hard to get Avani and Nik to open up, make peace and honour the memory of Elliott. Audrey Burke and her warm and loving husband Brian have been happily married eleven years; they have a ten-year-old daughter named Harper and a six-year-old son named Dory. Jerry Sunborne is a heroin addict who has been Brian's close childhood friend for many years.Patel’s novel was published this January following her winning the #Merky Books New Writer’s Prize in April 2021. “It was really a dream come true, even just to be longlisted and shortlisted,” she tells me. “But to win and to have a book deal was just incredible.” I spoke to Patel about The Things That We Lost , feeling othered, and the importance of representing male friendship in fiction.

Writea message in a bottleto other players about anything. Tell a story, share a secret, try to help a player or even harm them. I didn’t think so much about fitting it into genres when writing because I didn’t want to feel constrained or restricted. I didn’t want to think too much about the reader because I felt the pressure of that would have overcooked the writing. I started with the characters and wanted to get to know them fully. Then, I went where they led me. Several events skillfully continue conversations about race, brilliantly illustrating throughout the novel, how this can factor into interracial relationships, movement across the UK, identity, the workplace and culture. There are great themes of loss and bereavement, light touches on racism and the differences between multi-cultural London and whichever northern town Nik chooses to study in. There's an examination of the challenges of holding onto your friends when your lives start to diverge - and that's for both mother and son. In this book, author Maggie has attempted a spin on a very common question we all have subjected ourselves to atleast once - what if I had done this instead of that? What if I had done things things differently? The principal character of this book Maddie is overcome by this question when her current life isn't what it used to be. She feels neglected by her husband and craves for some attention and love from him. She is also cheating on him and is struggling to come to terms with her conflicting emotions regarding her infraction. Becoming upset with her husband's perceived neglect, she wishes that she had chosen her ex-boyfriend Jayson, with whom she had been cheating her husband, rather than her husband all those years ago.I want to take my time writing the next book, as I did with the first, because I enjoyed it so much and loved having the characters with me for all those years. It was such a joy taking the time to slowly discover who they were. I’m excited to do the same with the next set of characters too. Maddie's current life is crumbling. She loves her two young daughters. but her marriage to Nathan isn't working out. Her husband is having a midlife crisis and has pulled away from his wife and girls, leaving everything to Maddie. Desperate, Maddie starts an affair with Jayson at a writer's conference. That’s when I realised there was space in literature for characters who look and sound like me and the people I grew up with. Maddie is married to Nathan and they have two little girls. She's unfulfilled even though she has a great career as a novelist. When she reconnects with her university boyfriend Jayson, she wonders if she had made a mistake following her current path. She goes to sleep and wakes up in a different reality--it's ten years earlier, she and Jayson are together, and nothing in her life is how she remembers. Can she figure out what is going on?