The New Yorker Radio Hour - Deepti Kapoor Discusses “Age of Vice” with Parul Sehgal

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Deepti Kapoor describes New Delhi, the setting of her novel “Age of Vice” as “extremely beautiful, but also violent. . . . It’s a place where you think you’re gonna get cheated and robbed until someone does something incredibly kind and breaks your heart.” The highly anticipated book, published simultaneously in twenty countries this month, is part crime thriller, part family saga centered on a reckless playboy who wants to break away from his mob family; a young man working as a servant to him; and a naïve young journalist. Kapoor, who spent a decade as a journalist herself, tells Parul Sehgal that she wrote the book while living abroad—needing the distance from her country in order to see it more clearly. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Age of Vice is a novel just published this month. Now, I hate the word buzzy, which seems a little tried for a serious book, but A.J. of Vice was published in 20 countries simultaneously, which is hard to do for an author who isn't named, say, James Patterson. The story takes place in New Delhi, the capital of India, and it's part crime. thriller, part family saga. The author is Deep T. Kapoor, who spent a decade as a journalist in Delhi, and she moves the action in Age of Vice between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich.

Deepty Kapoor talked this week with Parles Sagle, who's a staff writer at the New Yorker covering literature and much more. So Age of Vice by Deepi Kapoor is this really fast-paced, shadowy novel that begins at 3 a.m. on a Delhi street. Mercedes has mowed down five people. The novel then jumps back and tells a story with three different points of view. There's Ajay, servant. There's Sunny, this reckless playboy. And Neda, a journalist who's caught up in the story.

You know, it's Ghosh to say that one of the reasons I'm drawn to this book is an autobiographical element. I lived in Delhi at the same time. I remember the pace of this. I remember the pulse, the harshness, but also the wildness. I recognize this deli. And the book itself is this big, copious embrace of so many different kinds of storytelling. It feels like a thriller. It feels like true crime.

There's autobiography that is woven through it. And it's sort of trying to capture as many different ways of telling this story. I mean, I should mention here that I know you. Yeah. I partied with you in your 20s a little bit. I knew you in Delhi, right about the time that this. novelist set. And Delhi itself is such a big brawny character in this book. But I think for people that know Delhi, this book is like full of longing for it in a way that took my breath away.

There's a section where you just conjure the winter mornings when you take the woolens out of the trunk. Tell me about the deli that you wanted to put on the page with this book. Yeah, I mean, Delhi is this itch I constantly need to scratch. I think it's because where I I came of age in the city. I came over age in the early aorts when Delhi was transforming from this very sleepy, sedate city, post-liberization with all the money that flowed in, suddenly with all the building that started, with all the capital, with all the global companies that started coming in. Grigau, which was farmland and is now this, this, what can I call it, monstrous city.

I wanted to capture the pain and the pleasure of living in Delhi. You know, the pleasure of driving those streets late at night. The pain that came when you realized that all those years of success and privilege were accounted for by someone else. So that's what I was trying to get. This novel was also written as my way of not atoning, but accounting for those years. Yeah, and Delhi is a place that changes you. Yeah, absolutely. It's both extremely beautiful, but also violent.

It's unjust. It's desperately unequal. But at the same time, you know, it's a place where you think you're going to get cheated and robbed until someone does something incredibly kind and wakes your heart. So, yeah, it's a heartbreaking city. Yeah, yeah. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

I think for this book, I mean, in both your books, a bad character and in this one, the style is the story for me. And the style is so different. And one of my favorite things is following novelists who change it up. But I did want to ask you about this style. Was it a conscious choice? Or was it a rhythm that started to emerge once you were already in these characters' lives and telling these stories? That's a really interesting question. And I think novelists always say that when they don't know the answer to this question.

No. So fair. But now, my process is quite often quite chaotic and unpredictable. I don't plan. I make notes that I never look at again. But part of it is I think just your rational self playing against your subconscious, especially with the characters. It's like you create them and then they, and then this seems like really silly.

But then they do actually start doing things that you hadn't predicted. Sometimes I think of it like artificial intelligence, where you've created a program, you've run the program, and then the characters become sentient. And they start, they gain consciousness, and then you're basically just trying to control them. And I think that happened towards the latter half of the book. And that's also why the style changed. Yeah, it feels inevitable too because like a book of the size, which I think, you know, it's just, there's such amplitude here. and it's the product of many, many years. How long were you writing this book?

Well, four years. But I think it's 20 years in the making in terms of all the stories and everything. And you didn't write this book in India, is that right? Where were you living when you were to work? So I had just moved. I left India in 2018. I had the idea by then.

I'd started working on it. But I moved to Lisbon and Portugal. And again, it was because my husband is British. We wanted to get European residency before Brexit. We don't have the kind of, I have an Indian passport, which is not a great one. So it was actually really good to move away. And I was full off the world, but not being in the world really helped. Say more about that.

Say more. Like, were there things that you were able to think, imagine or say about this world that came easier because you were far away? I think it was bolder, more radical. Yeah. And I think that if I was writing it in India, it would have been a different novel. And I don't know how, but I know it. You know, I know it's just my instinct saying that, but I have a very strong feeling.

It would have been a very different novel. Maybe it wouldn't have been as, I don't know. I hate to use this word radical, but it was just that I had, you know, I just didn't care so much because I really wanted to, I wanted to get it right and I still think I haven't got it right. Yeah, being away helped.

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine writing, it in India, it would be hard to banish the feeling of all those eyes. Yeah, basically that's it. But you didn't represent this in this particular way. And how could you say this? And, you know, maybe being a way allowed you some freedom. I mean, which leads me to another question I want to ask you. I don't know if you said this to me or in an interview, but you once said around the time of the publication of your first book that it was important for you to be apart from a scene. you didn't want to know too many writers. Yeah.

You know, that it was just, it was a way for you to feel brave and for you to feel free. Is that still true? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think it's really important to not hang out with other writers. Goodbye, Titi. You're great.

And the exception. It's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless you've known people before you became a writer. So then that doesn't, you know, that disqualifies you anyway. So I think it's because I just, I like to hang out with, you know, and hopefully none of the people I steal from are going to be listening to this. But just people who don't actually, you know, who have these very interesting lives.

And they could be anyone. They could be DJs or they could be party people. I often hang out with drivers. They tell me all kinds of crazy stories. And then if you hang out with other writers, where are you going to get the stories from? Where are you going to steal unnoticed from? But we've talked about stealing. We've talked about spying and looking and listening and gathering.

And you've returned to, I mean, it's strange to talk about crime as if it's like a special topic when you're talking about Delhi, because crime is so foundational in Delhi. Like it's not something that you're bringing into the story. It's there. You look at any story, it's going to be a story of corruption. It's going to be a story of something like this. But one of the things I was curious. about is, you know, when you're speaking to people now in America and you're speaking to journalists and you're seeing reviews, are American readers noticing or alighting upon something

different than Indian readers are? Oh, absolutely. Tell me. So Americans just love the hero's journey, and that's Ajay. So it's all about Ajay. And this has been happening, it's not just Americans, it's the Europeans as well. I've also been working on an adaptation with FX and all the TV people are obsessed with that J. Indians, not so much. They're looking at it as a story that plays out in modern India. It's a story about corruption,

about power, about what's going on right now, the relationship between mafias and the state. So they're much more interested in the themes. It's very interesting, actually. I never imagine this response

and this difference in the response. And I think Indians are rightfully suspicious of Indian writers who they think are writing for the West. So, you know, you have to convince them that it's not just a book written for the West. And how does one begin to do that? I have absolutely no idea. I don't know. I just hope I've, you know, I've managed to please a few readers in India.

Can't say. With NEDA, I think in certain ways there might be the most overlap. And I suppose there is, but I would love to know a little bit more about how your own work as a journalist informed the writing of this particular book. Did it help? Was it helpful? Was it something that you had to unlearn also? Because journalism does teach us ways of thinking and ways of presenting information. How is that for you? I was a bad journalist. So there you go.

I spent a lot of time driving in my car, apparently trying to figure out what was going on in the city, which I did. I think what I was good at was just observing people and disappearing in a space and then just being there. But I'm not very good at doggedly kind of like pursuing a story. You know, I'd rather just hang out with people and be in a state of being than actually pursue that story, which is why I think I'm a better and better at writing fiction. than not fiction.

I mean, one of the things I think your book does so well is it looks at how, you know, new power relations are coming into countries like India and subverting some old relationships, strengthening others, monkeying with it in all kinds of ways, you know. And it's the sort of thing that, you know, one could easily. you know, write an op-ed about, write an essay about. What does the novel allow you to do? I think it allows me to tell a story, but not the story, you know. Yeah.

And I think if it allows me to create these characters for which, you know, someone can feel empathy for, someone can imagine the world, even for a few hours. You know, someone who has absolutely no idea, maybe. And learns. I mean, I hate to use that word, learning, because that's not what the novel is about, right? It's tricky because, I mean, again, to use another word that I don't think you would ever use, but you're trying to rouse people or wake them, but not in that kind of usual way. Like, it's, I don't know, I don't know.

Implicate them, maybe, involve them. Yeah, I think so. You know? Maybe indict them. Indact them, entrap them, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that that's more appropriate. And I had that awakening when, after the Joti Singh, rape and murder and the subsequent protests, I was sort of shaken. Yeah, this is the gang rape of Jotty Singh in 2012 on the bus. Yeah. It feels like it was this moment for India, like similar to maybe the Manson murders. You know, something happened, something shifted. And I remember thinking that. I wasn't interested in just writing these solipsistic novels anymore.

I had to kind of like get involved, you know, and find a way to write about what was happening. So if I can do that, then that's, that's, for me, it's a part success. Is the language also part of it? Like, this book is very inviting, you know, and it keeps you reading. And I was thinking about the relationship between, and it's almost like a queer. balance between how entertaining it is and the difficult truths it has to tell, you know? And I was wondering what it would be like to sit with that and just to say, like, I have to share these scenes. I have to, and I have to keep you with me. Yeah. And that's when it becomes

challenging because that's when, you know, you could just be tempted to just be like, I'm going to tell a story and I'm going to make it this big adventure sort of novel about this young boy and then how he rises up the ranks and then he and then this happens and then he gets revenge. but I just didn't want to do that. And that's when it does become challenging because you're trying to find a way to incorporate all the other things you want to say. And while at the same time,

you want to keep it propulsive, you want to keep it thrilling. But it's not like a thriller. So it's always very interesting for me when it's being sold as one. Why isn't it a thriller? Okay, it's a political thriller. I take that back.

It's a thriller. Everyone buy it. It's a thriller. Thank you so much for being here, Diti. Thanks for having me, Borrow. It's a real pleasure to speak with you. Carl Sagle, who's a staff writer and critic at The New Yorker, speaking with novelist Deep Dekpur. Age of Vice came out this month.

I'm David Remnick. That's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton,

Breida Green, Adam Howard, Palilea, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, and Ingofen in Puteboile, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Harrison Keyfine, Mike Cutchman, and Meher Batia. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.