By: Seth Brown
In Bad Americans: Part II, which builds upon Bad Americans: Part I, Tejas Desai does not begin with a resolution. Instead, the novel opens in the aftermath of an accusation, unsettled, unresolved, and already shaping the emotional terrain that follows.
“It immediately sets up drama, and in particular an accusation, which goes along with the theme of storytelling, of listening versus examining and also of gossip versus reality,” Desai says.
That tension, between what is said and what is true, threads through the novel’s central setting, The Getaway, a remote, high-end retreat that operates as a controlled social experiment. Within its contained environment, guests and staff from different backgrounds are brought together, their interactions shaped as much by perception as by fact.
Accusations ripple outward. Stories circulate. Interpretations harden.
The result is a narrative that feels less like a linear progression and more like an unfolding inquiry into how people understand one another, and how quickly those understandings can shift.
“We live in a time when gossip and social media telephone propaganda seems to be a lot more important than objective truth,” Desai says.
In Bad Americans: Part II, storytelling is not simply a narrative tool; it becomes a mechanism of influence. Characters tell stories that blur the boundaries between fiction, memory, and projection, often revealing as much about themselves as the tales they construct.
“In the first book, the characters are more likely to tell stories to prove a point or convey their unique worldview as opposed to another character,” Desai explains. “But in Part II, the stories are more integrated with the plot, in the sense that a story can really wound a character or make people wonder about someone’s motivations.”
The effect is cumulative. As stories build, so does the sense that identity itself is not fixed, but negotiated, shaped by how one is seen, remembered, or misinterpreted by others.
“We really should be seeing every narrative in a detached, logical way, yet almost everyone first reacts to a story on a personal level, seeing themselves in that tale, and processing it through their own lived experience,” Desai says.
That instinct, to locate oneself within a story, becomes one of the novel’s quiet throughlines, shaping how characters interpret not only the narratives around them, but each other. As those perceptions shift, so too do the boundaries that once seemed fixed.
Desai points to this erosion of structure as intentional, particularly regarding hierarchy. “The book is breaking every boundary that exists, and so, what is the biggest boundary of all? Well, that of class, of role,” he says.
Within The Getaway, power does not remain static. It moves, sometimes subtly, sometimes abruptly, through social dynamics that mirror larger democratic systems. Alliances shift, decisions are influenced by emotion as much as logic, and authority is constantly renegotiated.
“Democracy is messy, and it’s never an absolute; it will always move on a spectrum,” Desai says, framing the environment as both intimate and reflective of broader societal patterns.
The novel’s emotional landscape is also shaped by the lingering presence of the pandemic. While it largely exists outside the physical space of The Getaway, its impact is felt throughout, shaping how characters process uncertainty, fear, and connection.
“Let’s recall that well over a million Americans died during the pandemic. It also shaped an entire emerging generation’s reality,” Desai says.
That sense of collective disruption carries into the more personal storylines, particularly those dealing with trauma and memory. In developing these narratives, Desai focused on specificity rather than spectacle, drawing attention to the details that linger long after the moment itself.
“One of the criticisms by beta readers of ‘Barcelona Blasphemy,’ or ‘Lisa’s Story,’ was that it was too blasé and didn’t reflect the trauma as powerfully as it should have, so I did a rewrite, and I think I focused on the details and the memories of what a survivor would most recall from an assault, the seemingly mundane but often powerful things,” he says.
At other moments, the novel leans into the absurd, not as an escape from reality, but as a way of exposing it. “Khassan’s Story,” also known as “ISIS Crisis,” serves as one such example with its intentional exaggeration.
“‘ISIS Crisis’ is the most absurd tale in the book, but that’s also why it’s so revealing,” Desai says. “Because it’s so obviously outlandish, you have to hang onto the aspects that ring true.”
This interplay between realism and exaggeration allows the book to explore difficult themes (race, class, sexuality, and immigration) without settling into a single tone.
“That was one of the major balancing acts in the book,” Desai says. “The sincerity was bolstered by the realism I brought to it… But the satire, I think, comes not only from the humor but also from the issues… because they are so complex, we see them both directly and in relief.”
At the center of it all is Olive, whose role evolves as the story progresses. His authority, initially defined by wealth and control, becomes complicated by vulnerability as his personal struggles come into focus.
“Olive is a man tormented by his mortality; this was hidden in the first book, but it becomes more apparent in the second,” Desai says.
In that sense, Bad Americans: Part II becomes not just a study of social dynamics, but of individual reckoning, how people confront uncertainty, responsibility, and the limits of control.
Notably, the novel resists a clear resolution. Threads remain open. Questions linger.
“I realized that would betray the nature of the book, and of reality,” Desai says.
Instead, the story leaves space for interpretation, for discomfort, for reflection.
“I didn’t write it to tell the reader what to think; I wrote it to give them a mirror of the time we are living through and let them decide how to think or feel about it,” Desai says.
In that mirror, Bad Americans: Part II offers no single answer, only a range of perspectives, held in tension, waiting to be understood.
The novel is available for preorder through Amazon, Ingram, and other bookstores, with a release date of April 15.
