Leave the World Behindis out on October 6.
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But a few months into his tenure, he began to feel he was failing.
Was he just not good enough to make it work?
He was so disturbed by this possibility that he quit the jobbefore the year was out.
This thought had haunted his life as a novelist as well.
My work is autobiographical, he told me the other day over vodkas-on-ice in his Brooklyn backyard.
But no one can see it.
The details of Alams life,both large and small, are hidden throughout his novels.
His parents moved there from Bangladesh in the 70s in pursuit of higher education and a stable life.
My parents really valued assimilation, Alam tells me.
We were there to be American.
They were extremely clear about that.
The second of four children, Alam recalls a childhood devoid of any remnants of his heritage.
He already knew he wanted to be a writer.
In 1997, after his sophomore year,The New Yorkerpublisheda special fiction issue dedicated to Indian writers.
This had a huge effect on me, Alam says.
As a child of high-achieving immigrants growing up in Reagans America, Alam did not want to be niche.
The fantasy was punctured when he ran into his bosss mother, whom hed met many times.
In that moment, however, she mistook him for her driver.
When I mention this to him, he laughs.
I am such a deeply underconfident person, he says, but I am an excellent performer.
Its a conventional family in many ways, he says.
We live in a suburban part of New York and have a minivan.
Its not as much of a stretch as it may seem to some people.
How are you still talking?
asked his eldest, Simon, reaching for another square of cheese, incredulous.
Having kids was liberation, Alam says.
I never published a novel before I had a child.
Hed already spent years working in magazines and advertising and womens fashion, feeling unsatisfied with his career.
The book was well received, but some seemed bewildered by Alams identity.
Are you actually a woman?
(She doesnt attempt to answer.)
Yet that was Alams point: a defining feature of whiteness is the lack of awareness that accompanies it.
That Kind of Motherwas the first novel of a two-book deal.
With a contract in hand, Alam decided to attempt something different.
He had achieved plenty of critical acclaim, but he hadnt yet made the best-seller list.
I went into this book with a fuck it spirit, he said.
I thought,This is my last chance I havent hit a home run yet.
For the first time, he would give a shot to write about an Indian immigrant.
Finally, at 40, he felt more secure than he ever had in his career.
That feeling did not last long.
But then he began showing up to their coffee dates with pages.
We went from talking about the frustrations of bureaucracy to talking about the logic of novels, she says.
He felt that Esmail, known for his work directing stylish TV thrillers, understood its themes best.
As Esmail was reading, he immediately pictured Roberts, with whom hed worked on the seriesHomecoming.
What if this was some con?
Perfect strangers worming their way into the house, into their lives.
and his wife, Ruth, are who they say they are.
In Alams backyard, night had fallen, and most of the bottle of vodka was gone.
As we drained the last of our drinks, he contemplated the threads of autobiography woven through his books.
Assimilation is not done in a way that is self-aware.
Youre not like,Oh, Im a brown person learning how to enact whiteness, he says.
I write about the living embodiment of a certain kind of blindness.
