Eric and Medaya are joined by Neel Patel, an author and TV writer based in Los Angeles, to talk about his debut novel, Tell Me How To Be. The novel opens as Akash, a gay songwriter in his twenties living in LA, returns to his hometown in Illinois in the wake of his father’s death to help his mother, Renu, and brother, Bijal, sell his family home before his mother returns to London. Akash is the black sheep of the family, still deeply closeted and reeling from a failed relationship of his own. But he’s not the only one keeping secrets. Renu is holding fast to a long-simmering love that she’s told nobody about; and things are not as good as they seem for golden son Bijal. Alternating narration between Akash’s and Renu’s perspectives, Tell Me How To Be is an intimate story about race, sexuality, and the secrets that keep a family together, but also tear it apart.

Also, Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Goliath, returns to give a glowing recommendation for This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar.