Bindu Suresh's New Novel, The Road Between Us, is a Complex Lover’s Knot of a Novel that Spans Continents and Decades

Seasoned journalist Bindu Suresh has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers, and has a wealth of lived-in experience in unique cities around the world. All of which is on full display in her new novel, as she ties a nuanced lover's knot that reaches across continents and decades. 

The author's latest work, The Road Between Us (Assembly Press), explores the complex lives of a fascinating cast of characters, including a lawyer, diplomat, nurse, and academic, all at far flung corners of the world but linked by personal missteps, losses, and desires that forever alter the course of their lives. Their stories are told in tension-filled, poetic prose that pulls the reader through this page-turning novel. 

Check out this Long Story Novelist Interview with the author, where she dives deeper into this profound novel about the decision we make, and where they may lead.

Open Book:

Do you remember how you first started this novel or the very first bit of writing you did for it? 

Bindu Suresh:

Yes! The first bit of writing I did for it was actually the opening scene, which is a conversation between two of my main characters, and it didn’t change much through my various drafts and the editorial process. I’d started off with the idea of a woman calling a man she’d been close to years ago to grudgingly ask for a favour; I knew she was reticent to do this, and that they’d had a complicated relationship, but I didn’t figure out why she was nervous to ask or why their relationship was fraught until later. 

OB:

How did you choose the setting of your novel? What connection, if any, did you have to the setting when you began writing?

BS:

The primary setting is Montreal, the city I choose to call home and where I’ve lived for over twelve years now. I love this city and wanted to document its energy and uniqueness as a tribute of sorts. There are also parts of the novel that take place in Ottawa, where I lived for six years, and New York, where I lived for three, as well as Toronto, Buenos Aires (where I lived for over a year), and Beijing (where I followed my husband on a diplomatic posting pre-pandemic). I very intentionally set my work in places I know; the toughest place to get down was Toronto as I’ve never actually lived there. 

OB:

Did the ending of your novel change at all through your drafts? If so, how?

BS: 

It didn’t. In fact, the ending occurred to me about halfway through the writing of my first draft and remained unchanged through to the final day of edits. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the ending certainly has a twist and when it occurred to me my thought was, “Aha, this is perfect!” 

OB:

Did you find yourself having a "favourite" amongst your characters? If so, who was it and why?

BS:

I realized this only in retrospect, but I ended up giving Ash (ironically, my of-Indian-descent character) a lot of my own personal qualities. He’s steadfast and romantic, much like I am, so he’s a favourite in that we were cut from the same cloth. 

OB:

If you had to describe your book in one sentence, what would you say?

BS:

The Road Between Us is a short work of episodic, poetic fiction, puzzle-like in its composition, that spans the first twenty years of our century and explores why individuals make the decisions they do, and the often unexpected reverberations of those decisions, through the lives of four main characters: Estela, who struggles in her relationships and in her professional life due to the loss of her brother at a young age; her best friend, Ash, who loves two women fruitlessly until a third option is presented; Ophélie, a nurse haunted by a grievous medical error she made at a child’s bedside; and Roman, an academic whose pain post-divorce leads him to seek out younger women—his students—in the #meToo era. 

OB:

Did you do any specific research for this novel? Tell us a bit about that process.  

BS:

I did tons of specific research, so much so that the internet’s algorithm about what I’m interested in remains skewed to this day. I researched winning swim times for college girls in Washington in the 2010s. The types of cell phones used in Canada in 1996. Bondage accoutrements (I have a character who lightly dabbles in this)—this last one had me be advertised handcuffs and blindfolds for weeks!

OB:

Who did you dedicate your novel to, and why? 

BS:

The novel is dedicated to my favourite cousin, who died in a motorcycle accident in India when he was 18 in very similar circumstances to the motorcycle accident and resultant death that occurs in this novel. Both the dedication and the fictionalization of his death were meant to be a commemoration of him on my part.  

OB:

What if, anything, did you learn from writing this novel?

BS:

I learned that the best way to carve out writing time is to wake up at 5am, before my 5-year-old and 7-year-old are up, to sneak in two hours before my doctor-work begins for the day!

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Bindu Suresh is the author of the novella 26 Knots (2019). A former journalist, she has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers, including the Montreal Gazette and the Buenos Aires Herald. She has a degree in literature from Columbia University and a medical degree from McGill University, and currently works full-time as a pediatrician. She currently lives in Montreal with her husband, her seven-year-old daughter, and her five-year-old son.