The Things That We Lost

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An assured debut from a vital new voice. About family, grief and belonging, Patel weaves an intricate story that will stay with you.' - Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby and The Good Immigrant Jerry is still struggling with his addiction but seems to be well on his way to recovery. He leaves red flowers on Audrey's doorstep with a note that reads "Accept the good," a phrase which Jerry himself had told Brian, and that Brian had subsequently said to Audrey many times.

The Things That We Lost by Jyoti Patel is a poignantly rendered novel of family, loss and secrets, and the depths we go to protect those we love— and ourselves. Overcome by the recent death of his beloved grandfather, Nik turns to question the mystery surrounding the unexpected death of his late father, Elliot, who passed away before he was born. So begins a gentle unravelling of the layers of family history and painful secrets carefully masked by Nik’s mother, Avani, piece by piece, until both mother and son reach a tense precipice that threatens to fracture their entire relationship.In this book, author Maggie has attempted a spin on a very common question we all have subjected ourselves to atleast once - what if I had done this instead of that? What if I had done things things differently? The principal character of this book Maddie is overcome by this question when her current life isn't what it used to be. She feels neglected by her husband and craves for some attention and love from him. She is also cheating on him and is struggling to come to terms with her conflicting emotions regarding her infraction. Becoming upset with her husband's perceived neglect, she wishes that she had chosen her ex-boyfriend Jayson, with whom she had been cheating her husband, rather than her husband all those years ago. Family dynamics and relationships have always interested me — all of my writing, in one way or another, looks at what happens when fissures form between people. Also, as you mention, I wanted to show Avani and Nik almost growing up alongside each other in the 1970s and ’80s London and 2017-18 respectively, to examine what was going on in Britain during those two moments. It totally transformed my Stephen Holden (2007-10-19). "Things We Lost in the Fire (2007)". The New York Times . Retrieved 2007-10-27.

At first, as I neared the end of this book I was getting irritated that there wouldn't be enough time for the follow up story of Nik and Avani. However as I finished I realised that actually, the story itself is an explanation. The Things That We Lost is a beautifully tender exploration of family, loss and the lengths to which we go to protect the ones we love. The next novel feels like a lighter, funnier read following a British Gujarati female protagonist in her late twenties. Families and secrets are also a big theme.Likewise, the development of Nik's character is handled with real insight and I thought it was especially powerful to feature a young man experiencing mental health issues. As with Avani, he is allowed to be a flawed, complex character and the spiralling of his emotions is painful to read about. His reaction to the loss of his beloved grandfather, followed by the sort of life changes which might be expected at his age but which can result in a fracturing of a protective, supportive framework, is so completely believable. Maggie Giles, a Canadian writer, has made her debut with 'The Things We Lost'. I got an opportunity to read an ARC (Advanved Reader Copy) of this book though the book is only getting out on April 19th.

Writea message in a bottleto other players about anything. Tell a story, share a secret, try to help a player or even harm them. It was also really important to me to show a young, brown man cry and be tender and be held by the men around him. Male platonic relationships really interest me because historically we haven’t really seen that so much in literature and art – how often do you watch a film or read a book where you just see a man putting his arm around his mate, or just laughing with him? Men haven’t been allowed the space to be tender with one another within fiction, really. In many ways, these characters are a product of all of the people they love and have been loved by. The relationships in their lives define so much of them, particularly at the moment when the reader meets them. I, therefore, didn’t want to home in on one relationship, but rather explore the web of many that surround both Avani and Nik. It was winner of the 2021 Merky Books New Writers Prize – Merky Books is a PRH imprint set up with Stormzy with a worthy aim to publish “bold voices from untraditional spaces that are inclusive and intersectional .. [and] .. to break down barriers in the publishing industry”. As an aside one of its very best publications was Derek Owusu’s brilliant Desmond Elliott winning “That Reminds Me”. The New Writers Prize is a key part of their strategy – aimed at “unpublished and under-represented writers aged 16-30 from the UK and the Republic of Ireland” and Patel, a UEA Creative Writing Graduate born in Paris and who grew up in NW London with Indian parents, won from some 2000 entries with an extract from what went on to be this novel. This precipitates a prolonged season of depression for Nik and his mother. She had already buried, rather than embraced, her grief at losing her husband, Elliot, years ago and now mourns her father as well.You are working on another novel around aBritish Gujarati family living in London. Could you tell us a little more about it?When do you hope to get this published? London is also written so well, if you know it you'll have a strong visual of that hill in Harrow and the school children with the straw hats, (if you don't then take a fellow Londoner's word for its accuracy!)