'Love Marriage': bestselling author Monica Ali on her first new novel in a decade

Her new book marks a triumphant return for the British writer

Author Monica Ali. Photo: Yolande De Vries

“I’m feeling quite nervous,” admits British writer Monica Ali, as she tells The National about her new book. “It’s been 10 years since my previous novel was out. But I’m also very excited about it,” she promptly adds, with a rich laugh. “For the very same reason. The reception so far has been just amazing, really gratifying.”

Her latest novel, Love Marriage, recently hit bookshops across continents and marks a triumphant return for Ali. It follows the lives of two (very different) families, brought together by the engagement of central character Yasmin Ghorami, a young British Muslim woman whose Bengali parents emigrated to Britain decades ago, to her fiance, Joe Sangster.

Both Yasmin and Joe are junior doctors. They naturally have anxieties about how the dynamics of their considerably different families will gel as the family introductions unfold, but are confident that their love will carry them through.

If only. Instead, the new relationships initiate an unravelling process between family members, as well as Yasmin and Joe.

It's a rich, diverse story, brimming with wit, warmth, sensuality and humanity, with characters whose relatively "normal" but idiosyncratic exteriors cover up complex pasts, denial, secrets and betrayals. Joe, for instance, has a hidden addiction and reluctantly submits himself to Sandor, a psychotherapist. Sandor tells him early on that the healing journey “is about honesty. Being honest with yourself and those around you.” It won’t mark the only time that Sandor’s words are sagely applicable across several of the characters’ circumstances.

It's a challenging artistic feat to convincingly orchestrate so many disparate but connected journeys but Ali manages it with aplomb.

So what were the embryonic roots of this complex storyline? “It came out of two different stories," says Ali. “One was about [Joe’s mother], Harriet, a kind of North London, liberal luvvie feminist icon with a colourful past ... The other one was about Yasmin, who was a junior doctor, and her love life. I wasn’t sure if I’d end up writing either of them as a novel but then I had a moment of rare inspiration.

“Like a lightbulb moment, thinking: what if I put the two together? At that moment I knew that it was going to be a great deal of fun to write, and I was off and running.”

The “fun” element is present in great measure, along with a tremendous volume of warmth and compassion for her characters and their circumstances.

Characters' sexual relationships are a driving force in terms of narrative, says Ali. "In terms of character development, it’s how the protagonists grapple with their identities, who they are and how they want to be in the world." These themes are managed brilliantly and compassionately by Ali, who in the book's opening paragraph gives us a subtle masterclass in storytelling.

But there's a lot to Love Marriage. Set around the time of Britain’s Brexit vote, it addresses the thorny issues of racism and race dynamics in multicultural Britain. In one passage, Yasmin is confronted on the ward where she works by a racist relative of a patient, and when Yasmin calls her out for being such, the woman tries to turn the tables on Yasmin and demands, eventually with the hospital trust’s support, an apology.

Trying to draw Ali in on what or who may potentially be responsible for the rise in racism and racial tensions lately is in vain, and her response is eminently sensible.

“Gosh!” she says. “How do I summarise that? I feel it takes a novel-length book of approximately 140,000 words to actually say anything sensible about it. It’s so complicated and nuanced and I find that one of the things that’s really difficult at the moment is when people speak in soundbites or brief phrases or aphorisms, it just doesn’t capture the reality. Or the complexity of what’s actually happening.”

It’s tempting, given the rich relevance of the psychotherapy in the book, with Sandor’s emphasis on “compassion and connection”, to project this idea of the healing power of psychoanalysis on a national scale. Does Ali feel that fiction such as Love Marriage and other works of art could create an engaging space for a kind of collective introspection, understanding and possibly change?

“If only! That would be an amazing thing," Ali says. "I think the analogy is an interesting one because people and the media have talked endlessly about ‘polarisation’, ‘over-simplification’ ‘battle lines drawn’ and all of that. And if you look at the United States, where I think there are deeper and much more divided partisan lines, that’s not a good direction of travel, that isn’t a good thing.

“I think one of the things we do know from studies is that fiction can develop readers’ empathetic abilities. Empathy functions like a muscle and you need to exercise it. Reading novels is a really good way of doing that, to walk in someone else’s shoes and see the world from another perspective. If people choose to do that, it’s feasible.”

Film can exercise our empathetic muscles, too, and fortunately for those who don’t get round to reading Love Marriage, they might get to know its rich cast of characters when the book materialises on our television screens. The rights to the story were auctioned recently and purchased by New Pictures, and Ali is excited about this next incarnation for her characters.

“It’s early days but it is exciting,” she says. “I love working collaboratively, I love getting to spend yet more time with Yasmin and Joe. Also, there were scenes that were cut out of the book for reasons of length and so on, that I can now resurrect – it’s actually really enjoyable!”

As for any hints on what or who to expect, or when it will be out, Ali says “watch this space".

“That’s all I can say at the moment!”