Parallel Stories (via Zoom): Sameer Pandya

This summer, Parallel Stories goes virtual in an online launch for Santa Barbara resident and Museum literary partner Sameer Pandya and his debut novel Members Only. Connect via Zoom for a reading and conversation between Pandya and the novelist Ivy Pochoda as they discuss this irreverent, tense, and sly novel that “The New York Times Book Review” recently said is as “witty as it is woeful.” In the novel, meet Raj Bhatt, a middle-aged man at a moment of crisis, one that is at least partially of his own making. Raj emigrated from Bombay to California as a kid and has always felt like he is on the outside, looking in. In the unraveling of his life over the span of a week, Pandya explores ideas of race, belonging, and the grace and indignities of middle age.