In her upcoming novel The Wedding, North Delta author Gurjinder Basran goes beyond the bride and groom, using a plurality of perspectives to both tell the tale of two South Asian families joining together and delivers a vibrant and complex portrait of the local Sikh community.
Set in Vancouver and 性视界传媒, The Wedding 鈥� which is available this Saturday, Sept. 7, wherever books are sold 鈥� is centred around the impending marriage of Devi and Baby, but told from the point of view of members of the wedding party, guests and even event staff, exposing their inner lives and, as it says on the back of the novel, the "secrets, resentments and unspoken truths boiling just beneath the surface."
"It's told from the perspectives of 15 different people," Basran said in an interview with the Reporter. "And so when you look at the book as a whole, you get a picture of a wedding and a portrait of a community and all of the things that everyone is dealing with, from secrets they've got, divided loyalties, long-held resentments, et cetera. So it's got a lot of, I would say, family complexity woven into all those different perspectives.鈥�
That "mosaic of voices," as Basran calls it, provides space for archetypes that don't typically get time in the spotlight.
"You hear from someone in their early twenties, but you also hear from somebody in their eighties. And those characters are equally alive and have an amazing story to tell," she said.
"I do think we are a culture in general that loves youth. You watch TV and you watch movies, they're often about young people doing amazing things, and sometimes older people start to feel invisible. And so I think we have some great characters in The Wedding that are older and have really important, vital stories to tell and experiences to share, but sometimes just don't have the opportunity because they're discounted in society.鈥�
But more than that, the novel's variety of perspectives helps to paint a more realized picture of a community not often represented in mass media.
"I think back to growing up; the only Indian person I ever saw on TV, if it wasn't in a Bollywood film, was Apu in The Simpsons. The danger of not having representation is that the stereotype becomes the representation. So I think that the more books there are about people living different ways, the better. Because then you don't have the stereotype type that, you know, every Indian person is like the guy from The Simpsons,鈥� Basran said.
"There's so many different ways of being an Indian person in modern day Canada, and you kind of get that [in The Wedding] because you get 15 different experiences of living," she continued. "You don't have that idea that, oh well that's how it has to be, or that's what it means to be Indian. I think this book is like, no, people are struggling with lots of things, they're trying hard in a lot of ways. They're conflicted and they're complex, and it all rings true in its way because there's just no one way to be.鈥�
That multi-faceted, three-dimensional representation is what may both surprise some readers who are not themselves South Asian or Sikh, as well as allow them to identify with The Wedding's story and characters nonetheless.
鈥淚 think it's a book that has some wide appeal, whether you're in the [Indian] community or not in the community. I think it's an enjoyable read that I think is surprising because, on the one hand, you can read it just for the fun and the experience of seeing this Indian wedding, but on the other hand you can also read it to understand more about the complexity of how all these people are living," Basran said. "I don't think you have to be in the community to read it. I think there's lots for everyone.鈥�
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The idea for the novel came to Basran shortly after the release of her third book in 2022.
"I was with my sisters and I joked that I should write about an Indian wedding. It was just kind of a joke, because I thought, you know, that's maybe what people would enjoy, and I've never been one to write what other people want," Basran said. "But then I realized, chatting and laughing about funny things that we'd heard that had happened at weddings, and not so funny things, that actually was a really good idea, especially if I could show a whole community in a book as opposed to just one or two people."
Though she drew inspiration from stories she'd heard and things she'd seen, Basran said she took care to craft those experiences into something original.
鈥淚 think as a writer you have to be really careful to not use other people's stories, so I'll often take a story and be like, oh, that's a funny element, and then twist it up in knots and it comes out as something new. So I used, I would say, kind of the inspiration from things I've seen, but no one's actual real story."
A Simon Fraser University Writer鈥檚 Studio alumna, Basran first put pen to paper 鈥� "or fingers to keys," she joked 鈥� in 2004, writing about her life growing up in Delta "for personal pleasure and reflection."
"I realized there was a lot there, there were a lot of stories to mine. And so just kind of excavating my own history was the way into my first book. And after that, I just really came to love writing.
"It's a way to unpack and understand the world. There's probably faster and easier ways to do it, but for me, finding meaning in the story really helps it. I think sometimes, stories and fiction can tell the truth better than the facts can in a way, because you can get at the subtle nuances that sometimes you're too busy in your daily life to notice.鈥�
Released in 2012, her debut novel, Everything Was Good-bye (Penguin Canada), won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was a Chatelaine Book Club pick. Basran followed that up with Someone You Love Is Gone (Penguin Canada and Harper Perennial) in 2019 and Help! I'm Alive (ECW Press) in 2022. The Wedding is her fourth novel, and is being published by Vancouver-based Douglas & McIntyre.
"I love setting my stories in this area because, though I'm sure some people think telling stories about people in suburbs is kind of boring, I think it's how most of us live," she said.
While she is eager to see the book hit shelves this weekend, Basran, who works full time in telecommunications and is currently the director of learning, development and communications at Bell Canada, said the feeling of seeing her work published has changed over the years.
鈥淚t's very different [now]. I think the first book is always the most exciting. It's the first time for everything 鈥� first time of publishing, first time talking in public and signing books. Nothing beats that excitement," she said.
And while she's still excited, some of the thrill has given way to a sense of "quiet accomplishment."
"Every time I do it [write a book], I think I'm surprised that I was able to do it again. Like, every time I've finished writing a book, I'm like, well, I don't think I'll be able to do that again. And somehow I do. So instead of just feeling that rush of excitement, of 鈥極h my gosh, I wrote a book,鈥� I just feel a quiet, proud accomplishment that, wow, okay, I did it again. And maybe, if I'm lucky, I could do it again and again.鈥�
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