Book Review: The Startup Wife
This was published in the Dhaka Tribune on October 14, 2022 (link)
A marriage supercharged with investor money, millions of users, technical and spiritual brilliance — what is going to give?
Startups are messy, so are marriages and Anam’s The Startup Wife takes both head-on. It’s a deeply satirical rom-com that is in equal part a swipe at the hubris of the technology elite and its belief all the world’s problems can be solved with code and investor dollars, but also the dynamics of a modern marriage that is trying to draw lines in the boardroom and bedroom. Tech ‘bro-culture’ has been fodder for comedy and memes for a long time now, but what makes Anam’s novel unique is the story is being told from the perspective of a female founder — a voice that is all too rare in fiction and real life (only 2% of venture capital money goes to women).
The story opens with Asha and her friend pitching their social media platform, We are Infinite (WAI) that offers pseudo-religious rituals for those seeking meaning and community. Asha Ray, an MIT PhD candidate, is the engineering brains while Cyrus Jones, her husband, is the spiritual inspiration behind the platform. The pitch lands; Asha and Cyrus move to New York and begin working on WAI in earnest. As WAI begins to succeed beyond their wildest dreams — apparently people really want custom cat baptism rituals — so does Cyrus’ fame. He becomes a modern day messiah for the ‘WAI-sers’. Asha sees Cyrus take over as the face of WAI with growing unease but things come to a head when she starts being left out of key decisions in the company. The lines between work and love begin to blur and Asha starts to wonder where she, WAI and the marriage are going.
We know from the title that the marriage is going to struggle, but it’s the nuances in Cyrus and Asha’s relationship that makes the story believable. It’s not clear why Asha doesn’t assert herself. Why does she not take the role of the CEO instead of Cyrus? Is it her immigrant gratitude of being happy with any seat at the table and not THE seat? Why does she not barge into the meetings when Cyrus is talking about overhauling the WAI website? She asks herself those questions too and has no clear answer. And that is perhaps the experience of many women in the industry. Whether it’s societal conditioning, lack of female models who stand their ground and come out unscathed or simply because no one stands up with Asha and says “Cyrus that’s bulls**t!” that women find themselves silenced in companies and boardrooms.
Anam adds another layer of complexity with Cyrus’ narcissistic tendencies. He is not abusive nor a jerk. But he is self-centered, entitled and gaslights Asha repeatedly. Whenever they disagree about WAI, it’s Asha that’s expected to apologize and made to feel as if she has made a mistake by speaking her mind. He actually says very little, insteading ghosting Asha for long periods of time leaving her thinking, rethinking, doubting and redoubting herself which compounds her silencing.
As someone who works in tech as her day job, I found Anam’s depiction of the day-to-day operations of WAI and the investor negotiations a witty blend of reality and satire. However, this is perhaps why the story feels like one that we have read before as we are living through it in real time. Cyrus Jones is a blond caricature of Adam Neumann who professed that his capitalist kibbutz WeWork would “elevate the world’s consciousness”. The pitfalls of a “spiritual” social media platform seems evident from a mile away given what’s aired in the congressional hearings of the top technology companies. Apart from Asha and Cyrus’ marriage, the story is predictable and doesn’t give Anam much wiggle room of where to take the fate of WAI.
Tahmima Anam confidently weaves her Bengali identity into the story through the bhaat and bhortas that Asha devours at her parents’ house. Yes, Asha is the daughter of Bengali immigrants to New York, but that is incidental and not central to the story. It’s refreshing that Asha’s Bengaliness is not explained with a history lesson on Bangladesh’s culture and geography no more than if Asha was Ashley whose parents are from Kansas. That’s the power of representation even in fiction, where both author and her protagonist can project their belonging in the global narrative without apology.
Shammi Quddus is a product manager at Google based in California, USA.
