Author Jyoti Patel talks to us about her debut novel The Things That We Lost and gives us a sneak peek at her upcoming project.
Jyoti Patel was born in Paris to British Indian parents and grew up in North West London. She is the 2021 #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize winner and a graduate of the Creative Writing Prose Fiction MA from the University of East Anglia.
Her debut novel, The Things That We Lost is told from the perspectives of 18-year-old Nik and his British Indian mother Avani, flitting between the past and present as Nik searches for answers surrounding the circumstances of his father’s death.
Jyoti’s writing has previously been published as part of We Present’s ‘Literally’ series and in the anthology for the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize, for which she was shortlisted. You can find The Things That We Lost on our catalogue.
Discovering Gothic literature was a big moment for me. I loved Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde. Reading their work really made me want to be a writer. I was also very taken by Romanticism, especially Blake, Keats, and Wordsworth. I found that whole period of literature especially alluring when I studied it at school, particularly how they broke from tradition and conventions - also the celebration of emotion over reason - which I think all sounds very relatable when you’re a teenager.
I definitely spent a lot of time as a child writing stories and just generally being wrapped up in my imagination, but I completely stopped writing fiction in my early twenties, after my undergrad. Then, in my mid-twenties, I began writing a conversation between Nik and Rohan. A few months later I found myself with a very spontaneous and messy draft of The Things That We Lost. It was a real joy to greet that part of myself again – the writer in me.
The MA had a big influence on me both as a writer and as a person. When I started the course I had a very messy first 50k draft of the novel, all in past tense, all told from Nik’s perspective. Within a few weeks of being on the course I came to the realisation that the narrative just didn’t work without the dramatic irony and tension we get from Avani’s perspective, and the flitting back and forth between the past and the fictive present. I started a fresh draft and graduated with only about 15k words of the novel still intact, but a clear understanding of how to be considered and deliberate about how I approached finishing the story.
It was probably the most important year of my life so far, doing that course, and I owe a great deal to my peers and tutors for all I learnt. Nothing beats the friends I made though - I’m still part of a ‘workshop’ group where we meet every two weeks to review each other’s work, just as we were taught at UEA. Three of us from that group have debut novels out this year.
It truly was. I had just finished the MA and hadn’t started approaching agents yet; I really thought if I ever got a book deal it would be a little quiet one probably much later in life after decades and decades of trying. So it was incredibly special to win the prize and the book deal with #Merky. Even just being shortlisted gave me the validation and boost to keep writing and get the novel finished; the week before I won, I finally finished the second draft I’d been working on since I’d started the MA 18 months prior. It meant the world to win and to work with the #Merky team to bring the novel to bookshelves.
The Things That We Lost is a novel set in North West London. It follows a British Gujarati mother and son, Avani and Nik, as Nik leaves home for university in the wake of his grandfather’s death. He begins to search for answers surrounding the circumstances of his father’s death, who died before he was born, but his mother holds the secrets of who his father was and their life together very close to her chest. The narrative flits between her growing up in 80s London to Nik at university in 2017 as they each discover how they fit into the world and how to balance the Gujarati and British sides of their identity. It’s been described as a coming-of-age novel, a quiet mystery, and a family drama. To me, it’s a character-driven story about love and friendship and belonging.
They’re both totally fictional, but a lot of what they experience emotionally throughout the story draws upon things I’ve felt in my life or things I’ve been on the fringes of and have wanted to explore further through writing. One of the loveliest compliments about the novel is that Nik and Avani feel very real, and I think that’s because I held them with me for so long.
I worked on the novel on and off for about four years from the first sentence being written to finalising the manuscript, and even when I wasn’t writing I always held the two of them with me. I think the space I afforded them, and the time I took to write the novel, made them really rounded and real in my mind, which then seems to have translated onto the page too.
I’m working on my second novel, though it’s taking far longer than I’d hoped. It’s another story set in London following a British Gujarati family, with a young female protagonist this time. It’s also about family secrets but is far lighter than The Things That We Lost. It covers lots of similar themes such as love and friendships and identity but is a totally different story with a very unique set of characters that I’m really enjoying getting to know. I also had a short story, Break, published in 2021 and then another, Once, in 2022, so I’d love to continue the tradition and publish another sometime this year too, probably with a one-word title to keep the streak going.
I’m a big fan of Tyler Mitchell’s photography – he had a beautiful exhibition at the Gagosian late last year and his book I Can Make You Feel Good has lived on various coffee tables including mine over the last couple of years. I’m always taken aback by the stories I find within his art and the way he captures beauty. I’m also a huge fan of Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water. I’ve never read anything like it.
I’m currently re-reading Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong - I discovered his work last year and was really blown away by the way he uses language. I’m also reading Okechukwu Nzelu’s Here Again Now which is just gorgeous. Once I’m through those, I’m itching to tuck into Gurnaik Johal’s We Move, which looks incredible.
I think readers might be surprised to know that I worked full-time in marketing when I started writing The Things That We Lost, throughout the editing process, and now still as I write the second novel. I even worked three days a week whilst doing the Creative Writing MA full time, which was incredibly intense. I think having limited time to write means that I have no choice but to make the most of it and it cuts out the luxury of procrastination, which is always a win.
