Still Lives

Publishing as an industry is obsessed with new – books yet to come out… but what about the brilliant books that have already been published? Each month we spotlight a different author whose book was published more than a year ago, which you might be yet to meet… This month we hear from Reshma Ruia about the brilliant Still Lives…

Shuffling the Shelves: Still Lives by Reshma Ruia

What inspired Still Lives

Home and displacement are twin motifs that run through Still Lives. The novel is a multi-cultural family saga about betrayal, love and belonging. The, protagonist, PK Malik, is a first-generation Indian immigrant in Manchester. Middle-aged, with a failing business and a wife he does not love any more, he finds himself trapped between modernity and tradition, between desire and restraint, between personal fulfilment and conforming to community values. The story is about a family slowly falling apart – but it also provides a twist on the conventional immigrant story, by challenging assumptions regarding identity, assimilation and what it means to be old and still be consumed by fires.

All writers have a whispering voice in their ear that tells them, Lay these ghosts to rest. My writing journey and the themes I revisit repeatedly are shaped largely by my own upbringing. As someone who has grown up across continents and cultures, I am drawn to the idea of identity, what makes us who we are – the identity in flux rather than one shaped by a fixed postcode or cultural/geographical DNA.

Identity for me is never black or white, it is multifaceted, and I write about characters who are in search of some kind of stability or acceptance of a version of themselves they can be true to. Of course, identity is linked to the idea of borders – geographical, emotional and cultural. Borders can bind and define, but they can be porous, and it is this cross-fertilisation that lies at the heart of most of my writing.

As an immigrant and as a man who is increasingly alienated from his own family, PK Malik faces a kind of double displacement. The family as a unit of discord and unity lies at the heart of this novel. In Still Lives I explore the family – or more precisely the nexus between personal identity and our relationships with others.

I am fascinated by human relationships – in particular the family unit and the infinite capacity to wound and heal within these hierarchical and often patriarchal structures. I am interested in the entire arc of human emotions, the delusions we cherish about ourselves and about life.