About the Book:
Twenty-two students of Winston Elementary School are being held hostage. The gunmen are demanding the release of ISIS leaders held in Iraq. A rescue attempt by the FBI could get the children killed. Altaf Khan, a 48-year-old Pakistani American, may be able to help them infiltrate the terrorists’ network. However, one of the captors is his son, Zain.
Azalea Heights is a clash-of-cultures story of a diverse cast of characters wanting to make a fresh start. Naina is recently divorced and is learning to live alone. Rohan is a small-time restaurateur with big dreams. Altaf, a proud American citizen, is struggling with the radicalization of his teenage son. Gerard is a retired Iraq veteran fighting with his inner demons and legacy of the war. When they move to a new development called Azalea Heights, their paths inevitably cross and result in a chain of events that upend their lives. Azalea Heights captures the escalating tensions within the neighborhood, but also recognizes the American spirit, when people with disparate ideologies, beliefs, and politics come together in a moment of crisis.
Fans of Little Fires Everywhere, An American Marriage and There There will enjoy this riveting tale of intercultural conflict in these unsettling times when prejudices have come to be accepted as normal.
Add to Goodreads
Purchase Links:
Amazon – UK / US
Reviews:
“Azalea Heights is a brilliant insight into the lives of the South Asian community in the U.S. The vivid details of the customs, the food, and the culture are both engaging and informative. The characters are well-etched and distinctive and the tension between them is palpable and real. The writing keeps you on the edge till the very end. A fantastic read!” – Minty
“The leisurely beginning suggests a touch of interpersonal drama about to start, but then the narrative grows into a quietly powerful exploration of cultural differences, simmering religious tensions, and societal divisions which becomes completely riveting. All the characters are sympathetically and brilliantly depicted. They are all convincing, authentic, and thoroughly investable. Azalea Heights is an intelligently structured, thought-provoking, and absorbing novel. Highly recommended.” – Rose Auburn
“Once the story reaches a crisis point, tension is maintained, and the book becomes a page-turner. The ending is both heart-warming and heart-wrenching.” – Audrey Driscoll
“Azalea Heights is a beautiful novel. I liked the book for its real-life depiction of humanity. I recommend everyone to read the book.” – Book Blogger
“Azalea Heights is a riveting story of strife between human goodness and personal ideologies. An amazingly engaging read, with a plot and characters that you will find extremely relatable!” – Sandeep Jain
Quotes from book:
- “Ayesha had been religious even when they got married in Pakistan, but the extremity began when they moved to the US. A reaction to the liberalism she encountered in the alien country. Since she couldn’t compete with the Americans in being open, modern, and liberal, she galloped in the opposite direction. The more you show, the more I hide.”
- “He had left the army to get away from the war in the distant lands. But the distant lands had come home to him.”
- “He had embraced this country for over thirty years. He voted in every election, paid his taxes, and celebrated July 4th on the mall watching fireworks. Just because his skin color was different, would he have to prove his American-ness every time something went wrong? Was Zain right when he said they didn’t belong here, that they never would?”
- “Sometimes, he missed not having a daughter. A daughter would perhaps have been an ally at home, against the united front of Ayesha and Zain. She would have appreciated his working hard for the family, the sacrifices he made for them. She would have been attentive to his small needs, would have asked him over dinner if he wanted achar or whether the okra was too spicy for him. She would have recounted to him her day and shown interest in his.”
Author Interview:
1: Tell us a little about yourself and what got you in to writing?
As an adolescent, I wrote sappy love poems that got me enough attention that I continued the scribbling. In my teen years, I wrote a column for the local newspaper of my town that made me famous among my ten friends. Then life intervened and I got busy pursuing an education, then a career, and then a family. It was in my mid-forties, that the infamous writing bug bit me again and I wanted to tell a story that had been on mind for years. So, writing my first novel, The Jasmine Bloom, was the result of my mid-life crisis 😊.
2: Do you have a favourite time and place where you write?
I like to write every day. And since, I have a day job, it means getting up at 5:00 am every day to get an hour or so of writing done before I head to work. So, beside the weekends, it has become my time to write. My study is the place where I write. I live in a lovely suburb in Northern Virgina (the windows currently offer me a lovely view of the Fall foliage).
3: Where do your ideas come from?
Ideas could come from anywhere: an interesting person or couple you see on the metro, a conversation overheard in a party or a snippet in the newspaper.
Let me illustrate by telling you about Azalea Heights. When ISIS was at its peak and controlled a large territory in Iraq and Syria, they witnessed an influx of young people from across the globe — including the West. I wondered what kind of families these kids came from. Did their families hold extremist religious beliefs too? Or was their attraction to fundamentalism an act of rebellion against the parents? This is how Altaf’s story came about that formed the nucleus of the book. Here was a Pakistani immigrant in the United States who spent all his life trying to assimilate in the American culture, who wanted nothing more than to be counted as an American. What happens when his only son, goaded by his zealous mother, goes exactly in the opposite direction? The other characters (and their stories) were the results of my fascination with certain topics. How does a returning solider feel when his next-door neighbor looks and talks like the enemy he had been fighting in distant lands? That’s where Gerard’s story came about. My curiosity about inter-racial marriages gave me Naina’s story. Hard-working immigrants — taxi drivers, construction workers, hospital attendants — determined to succeed in this country gave me Rohan’s story. How does the loss of a child upend a couple’s life? Does it ever get back to normal? Those questions led me to Kate’s story. Weaving these stories together into one narrative was driven by my belief that despite all the ostensible differences, at the core, we are all the same and believe in the same values.
4: Do you have a plan in your head of where the story is going before you start writing or do you let it carry you along as you go?
I like having an outline of the story at the outset. If you know broadly, where the story is going to go, you don’t get lost on the way. However, as I write, the story takes twists and turns not planned before and eventually turns out to be a lot different (and richer, I think) than intended at the start. The characters evolve and present opportunities that weren’t simply there when I started writing them. So, it’s a bit of both. I do have an outline at the start — but the final story goes beyond it.
5: What genre are your books and what drew you to that genre?
As the adage goes — write what you like to read. I like to read contemporary fiction and hence my writing is contemporary fiction also. I like to write about human relationships — our capacity to change and grow. I write about issues that are affecting the well-being of the society we live in — racism, extremism, ultra-nationalism. However, the storytelling is important to me. I don’t want my books to be preachy – I want them to engaging for the readers and like the message to be weaved in the story.
6: What dream cast would you like to see playing the characters in your latest book?
There is not a single day when I don’t play that movie in my head 😊. The book has American and South Asian characters. I see Bradley Cooper play Gerard and Amy Adams as Kate. I would have liked Irfan Khan to play Altaf. Unfortunately, he passed away last year. Now, I would like to see Aamir Khan play that role and I would like to have Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor play Naina and Rohan.
7: Do you read much and if so, who are your favorite authors?
I love to read. However, with the day job and the writing, I end up reading only about 18-20 books a year. Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have to be my favorite author. I also admire Salman Rushdie, Khaled Hosseini, Kazuo Ishiguru, Jeffrey Eugenides, Emma Donoghue, George Orwell, Laura Hillenbrand, J.K. Rowling, and many, many others. One writer I wish I could write like is Jhumpa Lahiri. She can evoke deep emotions in her readers without resorting to melodrama.
8: What book/s are you reading at present?
I am currently reading ‘Directorate S’ by Steve Coll, an engaging non-fiction about America’s misadventures in Afghanistan.
9: What is your favorite book and why?
I consider Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ the ultimate in storytelling. The spinning of a story that spans generations and yet continues to engage the readers closely throughout, the mastery with which Marquez adds the magic-realism in the storytelling is unique. The book that comes closest to it, in my view, is Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’. Both are beautiful, unforgettable books.
10: What advice would you give for someone thinking about becoming a writer?
First: Persist. I see several people starting, but then losing steam midway. It doesn’t matter how good or bad your first draft is, but it is important you finish what you start. There is plenty of time, after the first draft is completed, to further improve the book. But the most important thing is to finish it.
Second: Write the best book you can. I finished the first draft of Azalea Heights in 16 months, but it took me another 38 months to ‘complete’ it. I understand there are shortcuts available (self-publishing, editors) and the quality of writing of some of the bestsellers isn’t quite the best, but you still want to give it your best shot. The book may be a hit or a flop, but you won’t want your name to be associated with a shoddy, half-baked product.
Third: Buck the trend. Don’t write what you think sells in the market. Write what you want to write. The story you think you can tell the best. For example, if college romances are what’s selling, doesn’t mean you must write one too. If that’s the story in you, of course. But if you have another story to tell, go ahead and tell your story. That way your truth will make the writing stronger, and the readers will relate with the book.
11: What are the best Social Media Sites for people to find out about you and your work?
Website: www.rajatnarula.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/author.thejasminebloom
Twitter: www.twitter.com/rajatwrites
Instagram: www.instagram.com/author.rajatnarula
About the Author:
Rajat Narula is a writer of contemporary fiction, passionate about issues that are dividing people across the globe: racism, extremism, and ultra-nationalism. Having lived in India, Indonesia and USA, he has observed some of these prejudices at close quarters and they feature prominently in his writings.
He works for the World Bank, fighting poverty by day, and making up stories at night. He lives in Virginia, USA with his wife and two daughters.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Reading Nook 