# Can you make a family — and a country — great again?

An episode of [Bookends with Mattea Roach](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/250082529), 12 Jul 2026, 29 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/12/cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_WRITERSANDCO_P/media/writersandco/writersandco-nSTqT21R-20260709.mp3?ttag=season:2,episode:45

Imagine your entire family … immediate and extended … living in one apartment complex together. Karan Mahajan’s latest novel, The Complex, follows four generations of a family across India and America in the 1970s. In Delhi, most of the family lives in a crumbling residential compound. They’re the descendants of a political legend, and the family longs to return to their era of greatness. These family tensions mirror the country of India itself, which is changing politically, economically and socially as the Hindu nationalist movement begins to take shape. This week, Karan tells Mattea Roach about the real history behind the book, writing an organic political story and his complicated relationship with home. Liked this conversation? Keep listening: • Kiran Desai’s novel is worth the 20-year wait • Rage and love at the end of apartheid Check us out on Instagram @cbcbooks and TikTok @cbcbooks

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