Goodreads asked Manisha Gupta:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Manisha Gupta When I started writing Joe’s Republic in the autumn of 2014, I already had its protagonist in mind. Intrigued by the life of one of my distant cousins, who was a research scientist at a government institute in Bangalore, and had died under mysterious circumstances, I had always wanted to include him in my writing. Since I had met him, only on a couple of occasions at family functions, there was little that I knew about him. Hence I indulged in gathering more information from authentic sources, and learnt that he was an all-absorbing, preoccupied loner who had difficulty in developing relationships due to his awkward approach and odd facial expressions. The mannerisms and gestures of the protagonist have been adapted from one of my ex-students.
The novel interweaves two seemingly unrelated storylines – one, that of a father, and the other, of his son – both of whom refuse to conform to the conventions of the society.

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