Join Dr. Diana Naranjo and author Naomi Kanakia who brings her character Jhanvi to therapy. Years after fleeing San Francisco and getting sober, Jhanvi has made a life for herself working at a grocery co-op and saving for her surgeries. But when her friend (and sometimes more) Henry mentions that he and his techie festival-goer friends spent $100,000 to transform a warehouse basement into a sex dungeon, Jhanvi starts wondering if there’s a way to exploit these gullible idiots. She returns to San Francisco, hatching a plan to marry Henry for his company’s generous healthcare benefits.
Jhanvi enters a world of beautiful, decadent fire-eaters and their lavish sex parties. But as her pretensions to cynicism and control start to fade, she develops a Gatsbyesque attraction to these happy young people and their bold claims of unconditional love. But do any of her privileged new friends really like or accept her? Her financial needs expose the limits of a community built on limitless self-expression, and soon she has to choose between doing what’s right, and doing what’s right for her.
Follow Dr. Naranjo on insta @dnaranjo or
facebook: @diana.naranjo.7106
NAOMI KANAKIA is the author of three YA novels and a nonfic- tion book, What’s So Great about Great Books (forthcoming from Princeton University Press). Her stories, poetry, and essays have been published in American Short Fiction, Asimov’s, Gulf Coast, and others. She has an MFA from Johns Hopkins and was an Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellow at Lambda Literary’s 2015 Writers Retreat. She lives in San Francisco with her wife and daughter.
You can find her @NaomiKanakia on Instagram NaomiKanakia on Twitter, and her substack / main website is www.woman-of-letters.com
You can find The Default World here: https://www.amazon.com/Default-World-Naomi-Kanakia/dp/1558613161 or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-default-world-naomi-kanakia/1143836271 or better yet, ask your local book store and library to order it.
Thanks to Aaron Walz for the jingle. For
all your audio needs visit: walzmusic.com
Disclaimer: This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice. While the therapy strategies and techniques are
real, the characters and scenarios presented are all fictional and belong to the author. The content should not be used, relied upon, or substituted for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. As always, if you think you may be suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek individualized care with a medical professional or you can contact the National Suicide Prevention & Mental Health Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
