Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on the world, a Queens-based author\u2019s latest novel reminds readers of the humanity behind the horrors.<\/p>\n
Set after the Covid lockdown in the summer of 2020, Flushing native Tejas Desai\u2019s \u201cBad Americans: Part I\u201d follows 12 people from all backgrounds and walks of life as they are invited to stay in reclusive billionaire Olive Mixer\u2019s mansion in the Hamptons. Their stay echoes modern reality TV shows, as the visitors date, dine and even fight during their 12-day stay, but each of them must share a personal story with the group at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt both operates as a panoramic portrait of the pandemic experience during Covid in America, and particularly in New York City and the surroundings, and it also operates as a standalone novel,\u201d Desai told the Chronicle. With elements reminiscent of \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d and \u201cBig Brother,\u201d his novel incorporates humor alongside its intensity.<\/p>\n
Iconic literary works such as \u201cThe Decameron\u201d and \u201cThe Canterbury Tales\u201d inspired his frame narrative and stories within a story, which are fictional, but based on harrowing realities. The first one, entitled \u201cOn the Frontlines,\u201d centers on the experiences of healthcare workers at NYC Health + Hospitals\/Elmhurst, where Desai\u2019s mother worked.<\/p>\n
It starts as a relatively quiet hospital tableau, and in the blink of an eye, employees must fight to save their patients\u2019 lives, as well as their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows in a really intense way how the pandemic really affected lives, especially at Ground Zero,\u201d Desai said. The novel offers multiple points of view, not only from healthcare professionals, but also from patients, bus drivers, delivery workers and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the characters are very different from each other, and they all kind of battle just like in real life, but at the end of the day, they\u2019re all Americans,\u201d Desai said. \u201cThey\u2019re all human beings. They all have to live on the earth together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even before the pandemic hit, Desai said, he was already planning to write a novel set during one. And when he experienced it firsthand \u2014 he and several relatives contracted the virus early on \u2014 he knew it was the perfect time to start writing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enlisted all these people I knew … even people I barely knew in college, but I contacted them and they were willing to help me out. People who were in these professions that I was writing about,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n
Writing the detailed, in-depth stories was the relatively easy part compared to crafting the frame narrative, he said.<\/p>\n
Being a writer was always the goal for Desai, who started penning stories at just 8 years old. He said he was already writing novels by the time he reached middle school, and he finished his first one at 17.<\/p>\n
\u201cBad Americans\u201d is Desai\u2019s fifth book. Among his other works is the Amazon No. 1 bestselling crime trilogy \u201cThe Brotherhood Chronicle.\u201d \u201cBad Americans\u201d is part of a series entitled \u201cThe Human Tragedy,\u201d whose first volume, \u201cGood Americans,\u201d was published in 2013.<\/p>\n
Desai also is an assistant manager at the Queens Public Library\u2019s Cambria Heights branch. He holds two master\u2019s degrees from Queens College, in creative writing and library science.<\/p>\n
The novel, which contains six characters\u2019 tales, came out on Sept. 15, and the individual stories were published as Kindle eBooks before that. The first story in \u201cBad Americans: Part II\u201d came out on Oct. 15, and the full book will be released April 15.<\/p>\n
The books are published by The New Wei, a literary movement that Desai founded in 2012. It started as a literary salon in 2023, in which writers came together at different venues across the city to find ways to support each other\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\u201cBad Americans: Part I\u201d is available anywhere books are sold online. It also is available as an eBook on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on the world, a Queens-based author\u2019s latest novel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[5514,5513,9,24,63,122,124,123,5512],"class_list":{"0":"post-5990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-covid-19","9":"tag-literature","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-queens","14":"tag-queens-headlines","15":"tag-queens-news","16":"tag-tejas-desai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}