Shashi Bhat

Shashi Bhat’s fiction has won the Writers’ Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her stories have appeared in such publications as The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, subTerrain, Best Canadian Stories 2018 and 2019, and The Journey Prize Stories 24 and 30. Her debut novel, The Family Took Shape, was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Bhat holds an MFA in fiction from the Johns Hopkins University. She lives in New Westminster, BC, where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

Bhat's new novel is The Most Precious Substance on Earth.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Most Precious Substance on Earth refers to a moment in the book when the main character's high school band conductor tells them that platinum is the most precious substance on earth. (Their band is called the Platinum Band.) It turns out this statement is false—the most precious substance is either diamonds, rhino horns, or meth. So it’s a bit of a bait-and-switch, which is a pattern that occurs throughout the book. Symbolically, what I had in mind was that the most precious substance is whatever is lost when a girl comes of age—a mix of innocence and hope and confidence and the beliefs that we hold in girlhood.

Very early on, my agent suggested changing the title to Mute, which is one of the chapter titles and is a clear nod to one of the book’s key themes: the ways in which women are conditioned to be silent. My main character, Nina, is a person who often wants to speak and has something to say but just can’t make herself say it. I was attached to my original (and current) title though. I liked the obliqueness of it, and I’m a bit of a sucker for “lovely” sounding titles.

What's in a name?

The name Nina means “little girl,” which makes sense given the book’s subject matter. The narrator has a traumatic experience early in the narrative, when she is really only a little girl herself. But I chose it for more practical reasons—it’s not too long; it doesn’t draw too much attention to itself. It’s also the kind of name a South Asian parent might have given their child after immigrating to North America in the ‘70s or ‘80s, because it’s not conspicuously “ethnic” and eases assimilation.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Pretty damn surprised. My novel is set in high school, and though the plot and characters are not taken from real life, details sometimes are. For example, Nina’s high school band wears a distinctive forest green band sweater with a white treble clef embroidered on the right breast—exactly like the one I wore in high school. There’s a reference to a “long, low, mud-coloured radiator at the front of the school where the cool kids sat in a stylish row”—exactly like the radiator in my high school.

I think my teenage self would be surprised at the familiar details combined with an unfamiliar story; I wonder if she would think the jokes are funny, given that so many of them are about the world she lived in and the culture she consumed. I am confident that she would like this book, though.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

My beginnings tend to change more; I just write something to get started, and then usually the real beginning turns up elsewhere in the first draft.

I love writing endings, especially short-story endings, because I think they hold the greatest potential for emotional power. One of my favourite pieces of writing advice, from one of my college professors, is to always be thinking about what the reader is feeling in “the white,” i.e. the white space after the story ends. I love a gut-punch ending, an open ending, a lingering ending, a devastating ending, an Amy Hempel “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” ending. Since this book is structured as a novel-in-stories, there are many such opportunities here. I don’t know that writing endings is easier, but I feel most driven to get them right.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music was a big part of my life when I was younger. I played the flute and piano and also sang for many years, though I’m very rusty now. I think this has affected both the shape and sound of my prose; I read aloud and edit sentences for rhythm, or I write long sentences to create a feeling of crescendo. The narrative arc feels very musical to me, especially the compressed version we find in the short story, where we see that escalation and retreat so clearly. In this book, Nina is quite musically inclined, so I was able to incorporate descriptions of actual music as well.

Incidentally, my publisher recently had me make a playlist as bonus reading guide material for this book, which was a delightful experience. There’s ‘90s alternative rock, Canadian classics, concert band music—my high school self would’ve loved that playlist.

Visit Shashi Bhat's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Most Precious Substance on Earth.

--Marshal Zeringue