Description

Our Bookseller says:

If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi is less a series of short stories and more an album connected by characters grasping for intimacy in the face of their very human failings when dealing with existential angst. Beautiful prose that’s smart, acrid, and often frank explores the darkest parts of these amazingly realized characters, woven together by their shared experience of being Indian-American and the exposition of a secret ugliness that creeps amongst us all; an ugliness that we all catch glimpses of in one another but politely — and possibly detrimentally — ignore. – Justine

“I wasn’t always this way. But the friction of life has a way of turning sharp edges into smooth ones, smooth edges into sharp ones, until you’ve become a duller, slightly misshapen version of your former self.”

In eleven sharp, surprising stories, Neel Patel gives voice to our most deeply held stereotypes and then slowly undermines them. His characters, almost all of who are first-generation Indian Americans, subvert our expectations that they will sit quietly by. Ranging across the country, Patel’s stories–empathetic, provocative, twisting, and wryly funny–introduce a bold new literary voice, one that feels more timely than ever.