Novoneel Chakraborty’s latest book, The Heartbreak Club, has hit the stands. His 19th novel — a dark romantic thriller — is part one of a sequel and follows the story of a high school girl, Kisha Sen, who is on a twin mission — to expose the Heartbreak Club in the school and to find out about her missing elder sister. The bestselling author was at the Storyteller bookstore, VIP Bazar, to launch his book and interact with his fans. A t2 chat.
The Heartbreak Club is your 19th book and you have a dedicated fan base. How does it feel to interact with them and receive feedback?
I think it’s lovely. As a writer, you just sit in your room and keep writing all year long until the book comes out. And I think then, this is the day when you meet the readers in a bookstore. This is the day when they tell you what they felt verbally. Book reading is a luxury in India and there are some people, by God’s grace, who spend their money to buy your work. I think that’s an amazing feeling. Whoever has written more than four books will know how difficult it is to churn out original stories, especially in the thriller genre, which with the advent of OTT has spiraled. So, it’s all the more difficult to remain original all the time. Even if you think that you are original there might be some creative coincidence happening. It’s not easy in India to be a full-time writer and I think it’s only because of the support and love of people who read books and are continuously reading that I am here.
Tell us about your process of staying original.
I think this is a personal belief... that if you take your plots and your stories and your characters from certain truths, like certain universal truths that you observe, then more or less you will be original. And then you just start knitting the story from there on. Because there are so many stories, one or two points, here and there might coincidentally overlap, but that’s all right. I think what’s also more important is what you are saying through the story and the characters... what is your point of this whole book or the story? For example, The Heartbreak Club is a story of a girl coming to find out what happened to her eldest sister. Now, this plot might not be very original but it’s trying to find out what happened and that is original. The antagonist is the title, The Heartbreak Club, and that club is for me is a very original concept within a school premise.
Your novels have had female leads and this time we have Kisha. Tell me about sketching the character.
That has been my style from book one. Here I just wanted to catch a girl who is already an achiever. So she is a soft activist of sorts, an environmentalist who has a blue tick on her Instagram already at the age of 16. She comes from London, though an Indian, and there’s always a clash of worlds as she has a very different mindset. There’s this cancel culture that happens, which I’ve kind of superficially touched upon. Also, there’s the plot of what happened to her sister and the club so I wanted to keep the character who is not timid, who is vocal and smart but her challenge is that this world is different and how she maneuvers and finds love, relationship, betrayal and everything.
Out of the all-female protagonists in your novels how is she different?
I’ve never attempted a high school thriller before. There have been a couple of stories where I’ve touched on high school but I don’t think any of my protagonists are like her. I enjoyed writing about Kisha Sen
Tell us about the protagonist, The Heartbreak Club. Where did you get this idea from and how did you develop it?
When I decided that I’d write a high school thriller I thought what new can I do in this genre book? There are very few high school thrillers in India in English and then obviously there were certain shows like 13 Reasons Why, Riverdale and all. I recalled that when I was studying in school we used to have clubs like music club, drama club, sports club, etc, and I thought what if we have this club which is a little off, a little sinister, secretive and has a legacy. And what if one day their sinister moves go to the extent of murdering someone? It’s one girl versus one twisted legacy.
Is Kisha’s character inspired by someone in particular?
No, not anyone specific but obviously, when you look around you realise that this generation has a different pulse, they think differently. A lot of people think that this generation is not rooted and that everything is casual for them but I’ve also observed that there is this pull towards being rooted, in the relationship, in the way they think. There are 15- and 16-year-olds who believe in true love and they believe in doing the right thing. So I thought I should create someone going against the stereotype, who stands up for the right things.
Since you write thrillers that are romantic, how do you balance these two genres?
Most of my readers expect a relationship story within the story. The balancing part is difficult, honestly. It depends from story to story. In some stories, it comes very naturally like in The Heartbreak Club. But there are certain stories, like Whisper to Me Your Lies where to put in a love story and make it a part of the central plot was a little tricky. So, sometimes it is tricky, but then you have to somehow figure the way out.
Is there any new genre that you’re thinking of trying?
Honestly, I don’t think much of the genres per se. My next book is a coming-of-age tale of two girls on the borderline of romantic comedy. I wanted to attempt it simply because those characters were so fascinating.
