Rakesh Satyal is, most importantly, my brother. But he is also an esteemed author and editor, best known for his novel Blue Boy, a coming-of-age story about a young Indian American boy in the Midwest. He's also spent years working in publishing in New York, bringing together a rather unusual combination of literary brain and pop-culture obsession.
Since Rakesh is indeed my brother, I figured I had a little more freedom than usual to ask him the questions I actually wanted answered. We discuss why he thinks manners matter more than people realize, and what it means to have a distinctly "Rakesh" quality in writing—something that can be both highbrow and lowbrow simultaneously.
But the conversation gets much bigger than books. We talk about celebrity, history, anxiety, ambition, money, the Internet, and creativity. He also tells one of the best stories I've heard about a drag queen and a pot of red dye.
Pick up one of Rakesh's books!
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