As an author who loves to feature pop culture in her novels, I am always excited to read books by authors who do the same. I find them a pleasure to both write and read, and figured that our readership of pop culture super fans would feel the same way— especially if you're looking for your next beach read.
We invited the authors of three buzzy summer novels to talk about the inspirations for their respective novels: one of the biggest Bollywood movies of all time, a super-popular TV genre and a recent Hollywood scandal.
P.S. You'll find all three titles at our Bookshop.org page, as well as our book club picks and our own books too!
I wrote my debut novel Leave and Come Back (out June 16) because I saw a lot of remakes and retellings happening, but not of the stories that were the most formative and significant to me. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) is one of the most popular movies of all time. It's iconic to more than a billion members of the South Asian diaspora and beyond all over the world. Its lead actor, Shah Rukh Khan, is the most famous human on the planet. It has been running since the day it released, over thirty years ago, in a cinema house in Mumbai. It's such a seminal piece of pop culture and was such a rich source of storytelling and pop culture lore!
DDLJ is woven into all parts my novel. It's several of the characters' favorite movie and they reference it frequently. In fact, in one scene, they all watch the movie together. Later, when Leo, the love interest of our heroine, Simran, gets on the wrong side of the head of the family, the couple and her cousins come up with a plan pulled right from the plot of the movie: Leo and Simran will pretend to be strangers so he can win everyone over before they reveal they're together. The conspirators even name it Operation DDLJ. And not only is Simran the name of the heroine in both my book and the movie, but there are recreated scenes and lines that serve as Easter eggs—my nod to fans of the movie!
Of course, the movie is more than three decades old. It's got some outdated scenes and viewpoints, and is patriarchal in that the female characters don't have a lot of agency. Even though DDLJ revolves around Simran's fate, it's her father and her love interest that make all the decisions. So in retelling it, my story became a clash between this Simran and her formidable aunt—I love a strong matriarch, probably because I've been surrounded by them my whole life. I also wove a grief story through it. I don't believe that you have to pretend a piece of media is perfect to love it, so that became the way the characters interact with the movie too. It's their absolutely favorite and they won't stand anyone else besmirching it, but they think critically about the movie (because I needed to mention that unnecessary fight scene that no one likes). That also happens to be one of the themes of the book: that to love someone is to recognize their flaws and love them anyway.
In Let's Not Go Overboard Here, reality TV carries as much weight as a Below Deck stew transporting a tray of champagne glasses up 187 tiny yacht steps. It is my main character Mel's favorite form of entertainment and connection—serving first as a thread that bonds her to her best friend Ari, and then as a form of escape in the wake of Ari's death. Reality TV also acts as a frame through which Mel views the world, and she brings the same skills one would use to decode the latest development in the Summer House scandal to try to solve a mystery.
I wrote about reality television because I have been lucky enough to spend hundreds of hours sitting on comfortable couches with dear friends laughing and crying and gasping at this singular genre. I wanted to pay homage to the bonds I've created with friends and strangers alike over our shared passion for these shows. There is nothing I love more than putting out an exploratory “So I was watching Real Housewives of Rhode Island last night…†into my communal office kitchen to see whose face lights up. Writing this book was my way of doing that on a much larger scale.
How to Write Fake Pop Culture (and Make it Seem Real)
As a pop culture superfan who writes novels, I get a lot of pleasure from dreaming up fictional TV series, movies, celebrities and music. I'd like to think there's an art to creating fake pop culture, because there has to be some grounding to make the fictional pop culture feel real.
Converting my TV interests into a toolbox Mel could use to try to crack the case was a fun challenge. How would Andy Cohen approach interrogating a suspect? How about Cirie Fields? I wanted the pop culture references to be central to the plot, rather than just set dressing. In the end, I had a great time putting this tale together, and I hope people have a great time reading it. Whether it's receipts, proof, timelines, or screenshots you're after, I like to think this book has a little something for everyone.
A few years ago, a movie was released amid a slew of gossip and scandal. I was fascinated by the stories surrounding it, the silliness of some of the accusations, and how quickly the rumors went viral. There were even entire articles questioning the punctuation in the title of the movie! It was the directorial debut of a renowned actress with an incredible cast, and I genuinely liked the movie, but it was obvious that shit went down during the making of it. And, as always when someone gets really bad publicity, I couldn't help but wonder who was leaking all of these stories, and why.
When I decided to set my new thriller at the Cannes Film Festival, I knew I wanted to have a (fictional) movie at the center of my plot, one that would connect my three main characters (an up-and-coming actress, a stylist, and a publicist). My fictional movie is heavily inspired by the real one, as are the rumors that plague my characters. After some debate about how much art should imitate life, I decided to keep it close as a wink to all the movie lovers, like me, who had closely followed that scandal. I mean, the movie in my novel is titled Don't Be Sad! If you know, you know.
While I was drafting the novel, another Hollywood scandal swirled around, with a major dispute between another A-list actress and her male director. There was a vicious smear campaign at play and, while I felt sorry for the people involved, it provided great inspiration and made me even more excited about writing my own Hollywood scandal, and digging into themes that interest me. To me, these scandals show that no one really knows the truth. Social media makes it so easy to share rumors that are quickly accepted as facts by the masses. Lastly, I enjoy the reminder that even extremely wealthy and famous people can make terrible mistakes and screw up their lives. Stars, they really are just like us.
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June 25 at 8 pm ET: Jennifer (author of Parks and Rec) and Saul (author of How to Assemble an Activist) will talk about pop culture and political engagement in a live chat called What Would Leslie Knope Do? Lessons in Activism. You can watch it here!
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