Today is the 10th Anniversary of the publication of my second book, Good Americans (The Human Tragedy, Volume 1). As such, the Kindle ebook version will be free on Amazon from today Thursday October 12, 2023 through Saturday October 14, 2023. Anybody who wants to check it out for free just needs a free Kindle application for any device. You also have the option of buying the paperback from almost any online bookseller.
From a strictly “literary” perspective, I suppose it is my best published book, but then it is the only ostensibly literary book I’ve released (until its sequel comes out), a short story collection of 6 stories, a 3-part novella, and a creative introduction.
The collection has a crazy history which I could write a book on itself. The oldest story, “Bridget’s Brother,” was composed in the winter of 2001 at the University of Oxford in the UK, where I was studying abroad at the ripe age of 20, writing under a special light so I wouldn’t get depressed, trying to read (and unsuccessfully like) Henry Green’s Loving, biking around George Street, attending the Oxford Union and spying on conversations in Blackwell’s Bookshop so I could pick up British slang to use in my work. The story is derived from a real life experience with my fellow students, both American and British, and it shows with its subject matter, “awkward” prose and loose/dynamic construction. The last stories I wrote, “The Apprentice” and the three part jackhammer “Malta: A Love Story,” were pumped out the summer before its publication, meant to beef up the collection, and the Introduction was literally written that Fall.
At the time, I was shopping around the book as “Dhan’s Debut and Other Stories,” sending it to book agents and literary contests I would find in the back of publications like Poets & Writers, AWP Chronicle and Writer’s Digest’s. I would pay fees, wait for months, and get rejections, over and over again. All the individual stories were being sent out to literary journals and were rejected too. The few journals without word limits were sent “Old Guido.” The Florida Review editor sent me back a hand written note telling me how much they admired it — but they still wouldn’t publish it. Even “The Mountain,” a now praised story within most journal limits, was dismissed.
This was code to me that I was wasting my time with the conventional literary world, just as I had with The Brotherhood. At the same time, I had the revelation that the stories, as a whole, could work as a panoramic portrait of different elements of American society, as collisions of worlds, albeit focused on its dregs. That prompted the creation of the final two stories, and the change in title. For years the story “Good Americans” had been called “A Good American” (and also rejected). I decided to rename it and the entire collection after it.
So while I might have been successful, potentially, at shopping around the new beefed up “Good Americans,” at nearly 400 pages, to lit agents, I had zero stomach to do so after so many failures. Instead, I wrote up the satirical Intro as a kind of internal joke, arranged the collection, had readers check typos, and DIY formatted the collection for both ebook and print publications.
It was self-published in Fall 2013 through my own company The New Wei LLC, a year after my first and most popular book The Brotherhood, which would eventually have two sequels.
The few indie reviewers who deigned to read it praised it mightily. Kirkus Reviews called it “a solid collection of rare caliber” that “speaks volumes about the human condition and modern life in America.” The Indian reviewer Vault of Books, now deceased, which had dismissed The Brotherhood as a B novel, were amazed at it, calling it a “a great collection of short stories” where “each and every story” “stands out” and “leaves an indelible impression on the mind.”
The other indie reviewers also left no doubt this was an important work of American fiction. And yet, still, even after a major publicity tour, radio, TV, print interviews and article publications in HuffPost and Publishing Perspectives, no major reviewers (or publishers) picked it up, simply because of its self-published status.
Other than regular readers somewhat confounded by the contradiction of its low subject matter and high fallutin’ self-lauded aims, most of the criticism came on one story, the last one and the original title tale, Dhan’s Debut, mostly confounded with its ending. I wasn’t surprised by this because I had struggled with the story myself upon composition, rewriting it several times from scratch. It also didn’t fit as solidly with the grittiness of the other tales. I had two alternate endings too. I actually think the original ending, a more conventional one, worked better, but a good friend preferred the crazier ending, so I used that one. I realized I could always go back, but I’ve decided to preserve the published, controversial version for historical purposes.
In any case, now that you know some of the history, perhaps you will be even more intrigued to check out this dynamic work. As Readers’ Favorite wrote at the beginning of its mostly praising review, “this book won’t be for everyone,” but if you’re interesting in challenging your perspectives and leaving your inhibitions at its cover, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
And its anthology sequel, Bad Americans, is only a few months from being completed!
Tejas Desai
October 2023
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Americans-Human-Tragedy-Book-ebook/dp/B00FV8LVWC/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Iws9n&content-id=amzn1.sym.a6902a35-db15-41bc-b73e-8acb54939e9e&pf_rd_p=a6902a35-db15-41bc-b73e-8acb54939e9e&pf_rd_r=138-1568635-8006431&pd_rd_wg=p3qml&pd_rd_r=853b7c6b-fe68-47f8-8c49-84e271c7775c&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
