Q&A with Nanda Reddy

 

 

 

Nanda Reddy is the author of the new novel A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl. A former elementary school teacher, she lives in Reno, Nevada.

 

Q: What inspired you to write A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl, and how did you create your character Maya?

 

A: This story came to me a few years before I wrote a word of it. I was on vacation in Costa Rica, and a tour guide made the honest assumption that I was from India.

 

I didn’t correct him because it didn’t matter and there wasn’t time to explain the Indian diaspora; but the idea of an Indo-Caribbean woman who hides her true identity popped into my head.

 

I didn’t know the details of her story then, but I knew she would be someone who allows assumptions to shape what people know about her, someone who reinvents herself to erase her past. 

 

I also knew I’d mine from my life to tell her story, even if our stories differ. That’s because, as an immigrant who is brown, I have grown adept at code switching. I’m aware I will always be perceived as an other in America no matter how “American” I’ve become. That’s always been interesting to me, and it’s something the novel explores.

 

I also examine the idea of curating a life to hide all the unfaceable stuff, the secrets. It’s something we all do on some level, hiding the ugly parts, showing only the pretty things. Maya built a life doing this.

 

Q: The writer Nayantara Roy called the novel an “explosive story that ultimately transforms into an ode to love.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: As a writer, it’s a dream to be read by others and an even bigger dream to have your work appreciated by your peers. The biggest dream is to feel understood. Nayantara’s wonderful feedback makes me feel as if I transported the story from my head into hers. Difficult themes in the book definitely urge the plot along at a clipped pace, but there’s an overarching theme of love. I’m so glad she felt that.

 

Q: Did you need to conduct much research to write the novel, and if so, what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Part one is set in 1980s Guyana, a setting I lived as a little girl. Painting those scenes required memory retrieval and consultation with my mother since I wasn’t able to revisit Guyana while writing. She was helpful with logistics like ferry schedules and driving distances, plant and flower names, details about sugarcane burns, and patois language choices.

 

The flower farm in parts two and three is a product of my imagination, very loosely inspired by a farm one of my uncles once worked in South Florida. Movies and documentaries helped me sketch the farm more fully, but I eliminated drama related to migrant farm culture in order to focus on my main character’s dilemma.

 

Since this novel describes an illegal immigration, termed “the backtrack” by Guyanese people, I spoke with friends of my parents who arrived without papers. Their shocking stories sometimes resembled scenes from movies.

 

I ended up not using any part of their lived versions because I wanted this novel to be less about the actual immigration experience than the aftermath. So I simplified the process, again consulting with my mother who once knew a smuggler. She’s assured me that the story I wove is probable, even if it requires some suspension of disbelief, as most stories do. 

 

In the end, my mother was my main research tool; perhaps that was most surprising.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: This book’s working title was A Life of Deafening Lies; it never felt right. Summer of 2022, I workshopped a scene at Community of Writers at Tahoe Palisades. In it, my young protagonist learns she’s to impersonate a dead girl who had planned to impersonate another girl to get into America.

 

Fellow workshoppers highlighted the following line as a favorite: “She was a girl inside a girl inside a girl.” Noting their stars and reading the line again and again, I knew I’d found my title.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My WIP, a psychological thriller, is a departure from this novel. But there are some common themes: I address the aftermath of a trauma, the protagonist is a Guyanese-American woman, and I continue to explore identity. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m eager to discuss this book with readers everywhere. I welcome bookclubs to reach out if they’d like me to zoom into their bookclub gatherings for a brief conversation. For contact details, they can check out nandareddy.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb