Q: What’s The Isolation Door about?
A: It’s the story of Neil Kapoor—a 23-year-old standing at the precipice of manhood, haunted by the unpredictable shadow of his schizophrenic mother. As Neil juggles college, love, and friendship, he’s forced to hide a secret that mirrors the struggles faced by countless families dealing with mental illness largely in silence…and it triggers a kind of reckoning in his life.

Q: Why did you write this novel?
A: I wrote it out of necessity. This was the story I never gave myself permission to tell, the one that might have freed us from our private hell of sickness, recovery and eventual relapse. For years, I buried my mother’s illness, living in isolation and depression. Writing this book forced me to confront that painful past, paving the way for genuine connections, love, and a fresh start in the U.S.

Q: What research did you do?
A: The novel draws deeply from my own childhood—a time marked by hospitalizations, financial strain, and a fractured family life. There is a numbness to growing up in that environment- a profound otherness- that I wished to capture on the page. I found that feeling to be the hardest thing to overcome on the journey back to normality, sanity. I also consulted therapists and dove into research on psychiatric treatments, striving to capture the raw reality of living with schizophrenia.

Q: How much of yourself is in Neil?
A: In many ways, Neil is a younger, more vulnerable version of me—caught between the duty to family and the burning desire to break free. His internal battle reflects the messy, painful journey from darkness into hope. Having said that, he became his own person in the writing, and ended up making decisions that I might not have made were the situation reversed. But I empathize deeply with him, and feel a kinship there that feels almost brotherly.

Q: What should readers take away?
A: I hope readers grasp both the immense burden of caring for someone with mental illness and the unexpected gifts—resilience, gratitude, and self-discovery—that emerge from confronting life’s toughest challenges. What if the hardest thing in your life ended up making you crisis proof? What if it gave you a depth, a kind of emotional frequency that brought precisely the people you most need in life to your doorstep? What if, in the end, there was a deeper purpose behind all of this seemingly senseless pain and turmoil?

Q: How has your relationship with your mother changed since writing the book?
A: It’s become more honest and direct. By addressing her symptoms as soon as they appear, we’ve developed a healthier dynamic. It’s especially heartwarming to see her gentle, nurturing side when she’s with my children. There will always be a watchfulness there, on her side as well as ours, but that co-exists with an appreciation for the human being she remains at her core. My mother is not her symptoms, and its been wonderful to get reacquainted with all of those other colors which the illness sometimes muted.

Q: What are the key family dynamics in the story?
A: At its core, the Kapoor family is in crisis. The collision of the mother’s unpredictable schizophrenia, the father’s well-intentioned enabling, and Neil’s own desperate struggle for independence forces each of them into a painful yet necessary reckoning with the demons of their past and the reality of their future. None will escaped unchanged.

Q: How did your Bengali/Indian roots in Montreal shape you?
A: Growing up in a tight-knit Bengali community taught me unwavering loyalty, upholding family above all else, and respecting hard work as the difference-maker—but it also meant clashing with traditional expectations when I chose a creative path. It meant seeing people use emotional suppression and blackmail as tools to control their children, and conveniently avoid having to look within and change. Those roots, with all their complexities, have defined important parts of my identity, become the bulwark I sometimes raged against over the years, and ultimately helped me better understand my true self.

Q: What advice do you have for young people dealing with family mental illness?
A: Boundaries and placing yourself- your needs, your wants, your desires- front and center will be what saves you. Understand- many people will want to keep you from doing this. They will use every dirty trick in the book to sabotage you, stall you out, kill your energy, convince you that what you are doing is disloyal. Let them. If you don’t take this once in a lifetime opportunity to live your life as only you can, you will always regret it. And your family- the part of them that loves you unconditionally- should understand that and want that for you too. They may not be able to right now, and that’s fine. YOU hold their wanting it in your heart, and YOU redouble your efforts in their name. I personally believe that the universe has placed this in front of you for a reason, and it is to become stronger in the overcoming and pay it forward. You are not cursed, you are not broken- you are in the midst of a grand challenge, and we need you to climb over to the other side. Amazing things wait there for you, I promise.

Q: How should society view mental illness?
A: Mental illness is a “quiet crisis” in this country, with only about 30% of those affected receiving proper care (and that’s overestimating it IMO). Our systemic neglect and cowardice as a society fuels stigma and tragedy. We must have the courage to face mental illness head-on, embracing and supporting those affected for the sake of us all. Locking them up in jail, stigmatizing them, robbing them of resources and then wondering why this is now bleeding over into nearly every aspect of our country is a pathetically sad response from the supposed greatest nation on Earth. These are our husbands, wives, dads, moms and children we’re talking about, and our inability, our fundamental weakness as a society in terms of not being able to tolerate seeing them, living with them, or helping them is making us all immeasurably sicker and weaker. What does it say about how you will be treated the moment you are no longer convenient to the rest of us? Every society on earth that refuses to stigmatize mental illness is enjoying better outcomes for both those afflicted as well as their family members and loved ones. What in God’s name are we doing here?

Q: How did you get started with writing, and what’s your advice to aspiring writers?
A: My journey began with nightly writing assignments from my mother- a former English teacher- at age 7 onwards (on top of schoolwork!), who taught me that honest self-expression was non-negotiable. When she became sicker her ability to read was unaffected, so you can imagine the increased importance I placed on all of this. It’s how I could express the deepest parts of how I felt and saw the world to her- and I knew on some level she was taking it in, despite the flat affect and other ravages of the disease that took away her ability to express herself through her face and body and voice. Work it all out on the page. Write when inspired, bored, tired, depressed, out of sorts, incredibly happy, all of it. Let it be the place that always welcomes you as you are, unconditionally. Read what you love, don’t force yourself to “good student” anything, and always trust your voice and intuition. The best writers lead the way- why not you?