Author Ritu Mukerji On The Key To Writing: “It’s Just Consistency”

When Kolkata-born Ritu Mukerji was growing up in the Bay area, she used to look forward to trips to the local library the most. She eventually went on to study history and then medicine, but remained a voracious reader.

Fast forward a few years, and Mukerji is a practicing doctor of internal medicine and a mother of three. And now, her debut novel Murder By Degrees (Simon and Schuster) is an Edgar Award nominee for Best First Novel, and a Macavity Award nominee for Best First Mystery.

The book takes place in Philadelphia of 1875, where Dr. Lydia Weston – a doctor at the pioneering Woman’s Medical College – uses her medical acumen to solve a murder mystery.

Earlier this year, Mukerji spoke about the changing nature of the crime fiction genre at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley . Listing the works of P.D. James, Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell as inspiration, she discussed her love for crime fiction in which women play central characters.

In an interview with India Currents, Mukerji revealed how she wrestled with her knowledge of crime fiction as a reader, and her experiences as a medical student in Philadelphia to sculpt a deeply researched, plot-twisting page turner. The best part? There’s more to come.

Edited excerpts below:

Q. What came to you first, the setting of the book, or the plot?

RM: I have been for a very long time, a really avid reader of mystery and crime fiction. (Since) middle school days, I read Agatha Christie, then transitioned to Ruth Rendell, P.D. James and so this is my go-to genre. I love reading deep, character-driven mysteries, usually with a woman protagonist as the detective.

After so many years as a reader, I had the idea that I could draw on my own experiences as a doctor and write a story about a woman doctor as an investigator. The real fork in the road was, should I set this in the present day – where I could rely on a lot of the skills I already have – or should I set it in a different time period.

I had been a medical student in Philadelphia, and I had never heard of this historic Woman’s Medical school that was founded by the Quakers in 1850, training women along the same curriculum that male medical students had at places like Harvard and Penn that didn’t admit women at that time.

I thought this was just a fascinating setting for a mystery, wherein I could explore this wonderful dynamic, of this really pioneering woman doctor pushing against societal expectations. So all of these influences converged in one place and that’s really how I got the idea for the book. So before anything, I thought of the setting and the character of Lydia Weston.

Q. The book is pretty detailed in its description of 1870s Philadelphia, I am guessing that must have taken a lot of research. What was that process like?

RM: Yes, after I had the idea for Lydia’s character and the setting, the next thing was what I call world creation. It’s like creating a theater set in which you can place characters and develop a narrative. Bringing the world of the medical school, and also the city of Philadelphia in 1875 to life required a lot of research.

I was reading books about the history of Philadelphia, memoirs of Civil War-era surgeons, old medical textbooks, old medical journals, and so on. I reached out to Drexel University in Philadelphia, they house the entire archive of this Woman’s Medical College. All the books, papers and diaries, etc. are available to the public, so that was a wonderful resource. I emailed the head librarian and told him about my project, and he was immensely helpful too with recommendations and advice. So it was a lot of reading!

As a doctor, as someone who has been a medical student, that part actually felt very familiar because I am used to sitting in the library for long periods of time doing research.

Q. The mystery at the heart of the book is very intricate and unfolds deliciously over the course of the book. How does one create a plot like that?

RM: That’s the most challenging part for sure! There’s so many elements that have to be in great crime fiction, right? The layer of red herrings; the suspense that is sustained over the arc of a narrative; those little reveals that come at the right time. There were many revisions, but I will say that the beginning and the end remained the same.

To make sense of the plot while I was writing the book, I had a wall in my study, where I laid out the entire plot – with post-it notes because the different elements of the plot need to move around! So from start to finish, I map out the entire plot. The middle part changes a lot, but the three or four main anchors of the plot remain the same, and then I structure the book accordingly.

Having a great editor really helps. That’s the person who can really take that global overview, when you’re in the weeds, constructing the story. There were things that he suggested I take out that I did not want to get rid of initially. But what I found in writing the book was that you really do have to be open to suggestions and you really have to be able to see the story from several different angles to make it work well.

Q. The book is decidedly feminist, but there’s also social commentary about different classes, and the devastating impact of the Civil War. Was that always the intention when you started writing the book?

RM: When I set out to write the book, I certainly wanted to add the social commentary, but I was really seeing it through the lens of gender. This is a Woman’s Medical College; here are these women in the protective cocoon of this environment really doing path-breaking work. And as soon as they step out, there is so much resistance. What ended up happening, though – and this was actually one of my favorite parts of the book – is the undercurrent of class.

It’s not just men or women, there’s also this whole gradation of the class that you belong to, whether you’re educated or not and so on. There’s also this American ideal of “be a striver, pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. But it’s not so easy, right? It’s easier said than done.

And so yes, that undercurrent of class I think, definitely is something I’ll keep exploring because it’s very interesting.

Q. The protagonist Lydia Weston has an Indian connection too, to a place that you also have a connection with! Can you talk about that?

RM: Yes, in the book, the protagonist Lydia Weston’s grandfather lived in Darjeeling, India when he was in the service of the East India Company. So she has flashbacks of spending a summer in Darjeeling visiting them with her mother. I am also Bengali and have visited and lived in Darjeeling with my family growing up. So that part of her character is very familiar to me personally and I thought that’d be an interesting aspect of her character.

But a lot of people who read the book – my husband and my editor included – the first time they read the book, they said, “Oh, she’s Indian, isn’t she?”

It actually got me thinking a lot about where I want to go with this character. So I’m not going to give away too many spoilers, but I will say in future books – and certainly in the next one – there’ll be more to come about that aspect of Lydia’s life and background.

Q. While on that, what can you tell us about the next book in this series?

RM: It takes place at the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia. It was a very interesting atmosphere, as a lot of medical organizations, international medical congresses had exhibits at this Fair – the United States Army had an actual model hospital! The Women’s Medical College also had exhibits at the Fair, but they were relegated to a very small display in a pavilion off to the side. This is also a time when anesthesia is relatively new, as it was first introduced in 1845.

And so my idea – and this is all fictional – is what if a woman surgeon decides to do a demonstration of a surgery using some newer anesthetic techniques? Then of course, the patient will die under suspicious circumstances and the mystery starts from there.

I’ve done the research and the outlining and am now in the process of writing the book. I’m hoping to have that first draft done later this fall, and then it’ll be in my editor’s hands. So at least a year before the book is out.

Q. You wrote this book over six years, while being a full-time doctor and a parent to three children. How did you manage all of that? Any advice for aspiring novelists?

RM: Yeah, a lot of ups and downs! You really have to believe in what you’re doing, and believe in yourself, and you have to really enjoy it. That’s not to say that there are no difficult days when you feel like you want to put everything away and give up, there are many of those as well!

Given that I was working (as a doctor) the hours that I was, I wrote early in the morning and then late at night, and that’s why it took six years. It’s a long process, but you develop a creative momentum after a while if you maintain a consistent writing practice. And then once I got really attached to the characters in the story, I wanted to see it through.

If I can impart any encouragement to anybody else, it’s just that if I can do this, as a mother of three, working as a doctor, please don’t give up, and just be consistent! Even on days when it’s very difficult, if you sit down for 15 minutes and revise a 300 word paragraph, that is enough. If you consistently do that every single day, you’ll be amazed at how much you can actually accomplish in the course of six months or a year.

Before I really started writing, I honestly thought the way to write a book was to retreat to some quiet cabin where you sit uninterrupted for hours, and then the spark of inspiration comes. And actually, it’s just the opposite. It’s just consistency.

There’s this great quote: “The Art of Writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s pants to the seat of one’s chair.” Truer words have not been spoken.

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