Behind the Words Literary Conversation with Tejas Desai – BAD AMERICANS

Ever since I read The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron, I always wanted to challenge myself to write a frame novel with short stories. I tried versions of this technique when I was studying abroad at the University of Oxford in 2001-2002, but I don’t think I had the skill or the life experience at that point to pull it off. But fast forward to 2019-2020, when I was finishing up the final edits to my fourth book, The Dance Towards Death, and the idea came back to me. The initial sketch had 10 Americans quarantined in an academic library during a fictional pandemic, where they would be surrounded by these classic books and would tell stories to complement them.

But then the actual COVID-19 pandemic happened and hit us hard in New York City, and it was like a perfect clash of art and life. So I started absorbing everything that was happening. The rich moved to countryside estates, like in The Decameron. The poor stood in breadlines in Queens. Essential workers fought bravely and died. Riots engulfed Manhattan. And yes, I watched The Bachelor at the time. It was a guilty pleasure, I suppose, but I thought to myself, what if there was a dating scenario where all the issues that were rarely or only borderline explored on that show–race, class, privilege, mortality, diversity of experience, and clash of personas–were actually depicted in a similar setting? And as a single male, I was also dating on these apps, so I thought it was realistic for single people who were quarantining to want to spend time with other people in a lavish setting.

I wrote the whole thing out within one year — frame story and each short story, as each character came up to tell them. I checked recently, and the initial draft was a whopping 375,000 words! For context, that’s 4 full-length novels and a novella. So yes, it was very long and very detailed. After I wrote them out, though, I started separating the stories and sending them to subject specialists and beta readers. Some of them had more context than others. I wanted to see how they would react and, for the subject specialists, what insights they would give me on realism. So that reshaped some of the stories, some were rewritten completely, but most just had detail changes. The main challenge was shortening the frame narrative and making the characters a little less complex but still urgently alive, which was accomplished after multiple rewrites.

For one thing, it was personal to me, because I got very ill, I acquired the virus multiple times, I had to cancel my trip abroad, my dad got very sick, my mom worked at Elmhurst Hospital at the time, and I knew people who died of the virus. Meanwhile, we were absorbing how politicians, the CDC, and how ordinary people were reacting. How Asian-Americans were being scapegoated, how African-Americans were disproportionately affected, and how essential workers were both celebrated and used. Of course, I also got a lot of inside info through various people I knew, and through the things that I witnessed, which were somewhat different than some of the official lines depicted in some media sources. So it was a combination of things. Plus, there were pandemic books coming out at the time, but none really seemed to be portraying the realities or issues raised directly. So I figured it was my duty to accomplish that myself.

I probably got the most criticism/feedback on Hayley’s Story (“A Model Citizen”), which is actually in Bad Americans: Part II (pub date 4/15/26). I had done a lot of online research on fashion models in NYC, both traditional/runway modeling and modeling on social media, and how these variations interacted right before the pandemic. I followed a lot of models on Instagram and elsewhere for this purpose, too. But when I actually sent the story to a former model I knew, she ripped it apart and gave me a lot of insight. So I rewrote the story completely, and it became much better. And then there were some tweaks to Hayley’s character, too, although those were somewhat minor.

I also got substantial feedback from various sources on Cathy’s Story “Immigrants Unite!”, both from the angle of telling an entire narrative tale in spoken word, and from the perspective of a social worker. I also rewrote that story substantially and made the character a little younger to account for what some readers considered her naivete.

Wow, all these stories are tough, so would I really want to live any of them? Of course, it would be nice to be a health care hero in theory, like in Andrea’s Story “On the Frontlines,” but that story depicts all the hardships, too. What else could you do differently when you are bombarded by constant patients infected with an unknown virus and have to board people in hallways who can barely breathe, and your administration is giving you a hard time in getting you supplies? I’m not sure there’s much one could do differently.

In Taylor’s Story “Corona Chaos,” if the taxi driver Xavier hadn’t befriended El Chapo’s man Hector Lopez, it’s possible none of the chain of horrors would have unfolded–but then something else could have happened to him, especially once the pandemic came. Rashan’s character Stephen makes some boneheaded decisions in “Black Boy’s Ballad,” though, as with many of the stories, it doesn’t seem that making a different decision would really change his outcomes much, because the outside world is just too oppressive. Khassan’s character has probably the most adventurous life in “ISIS Crisis,” which is in Bad Americans: Part II. Maybe touring the world minus the joining ISIS part might be a fun experience, to an extent. But I’m not sure I’d really want to live any of their lives!

I think one of the things the book depicts effectively is that it’s not likely that one person would have the power to create a Revolution. I mean, Lisa is highly influential and constantly trying to unionize the workers and dig up the dirt on Olive, but she can’t succeed without Rashan or Maja’s help. And Taylor is extremely opinionated and always needs to win every competition, but he has to do this by influencing and motivating people, not just alone. Every time someone has an extreme opinion or decision, there’s always a powerful counterforce too. Just like in America itself. So to the extent that one person can swing the pendulum, I think it can only go so far–at the moment, anyway.

All the characters are very different, but I think they are all relatable. And while the stories depict fairly harsh realities, I do think the internal story characters are empathetic, too. There’s no question anyone reading this will sympathize with at least a few characters and see their own pandemic experiences (or, if they didn’t live through it, some other crisis) in it. But my hope is that they’ll expand their horizons and viewpoints to empathize with people who are not like them at all.

Bad Americans: Part II is coming out on April 15, 2026, after the internal stories are published a month apart, so that’s a big deal, and there are interviews and events scheduled around that. But if you mean writing projects after BAD AMERCANS, there are two: one, a nonfiction book on my personal travels (aided by a nostalgia tour to Europe I am taking in May/June 2026), and two, a hybrid nonfiction book on my literary movement The New Wei, which will likely include a blend of literary theory and history along with a depiction and analysis of the contemporary literary/arts scene. I’m also building The New Wei as a movement and collective. I plan to start publishing works by our collective members, too. So a lot is still to come.