The Family Heirloom Book
One book on the shelf in every house the family lives in. The voices, the photographs, the letters, the recipes and the tree, written by one person and bound to last.
Every family has the material. A steel trunk in Ludhiana with the land papers. A shoebox of black-and-white prints nobody has labelled. A grandmother who makes the dal one way and has never written it down. An uncle in Toronto with the letters.
Most of it is one move, one clear-out or one funeral from gone. The heirloom book puts it between two covers, in an order that makes sense to a grandchild who has never seen the village.
This page is about what goes into the book and what the book is. How a family decides what its story is about, and how I handle relatives who remember it differently, is on the family history page.
What goes in
The voices
Interviews with the people who were there, oldest first, each one on their own before anyone is in a room together. Recorded and transcribed. In whatever mix of English, Hindi and Punjabi they think in. On video and voice from wherever they live.
The archive
Letters, ledgers, passports, school certificates, land papers, the wedding card from 1962. Read, dated and quoted where a document settles what memory cannot.
The photographs
You scan them, I place and caption them. The captions get written while somebody alive can still name the faces, which is the part most families leave too late.
The family tree
Drawn from the first conversation with the family and checked against the interviews. Every name spelled the way the family spells it, with the village and the years where anyone knows them.
The kitchen
If the family cooks, the recipes go in with the person who made them and the stories that came with the food. Quantities are taken down while she cooks, because “andaaz se” is not a measurement anyone can follow in Singapore.
The recordings
Every recording is handed over with the book. If you want it, a small printed code beside a story plays the voice telling it.
The book itself
A hardback, sewn rather than glued, on paper that holds a photograph. Cloth or leather on the cover, a slipcase if you want one. A larger, landscape format when the book is mostly pictures, a smaller one when it is mostly story. We choose it together with the printer once the manuscript is final, and I send you the printer’s proof copy before the run.
One copy for every house. A family spread across Mumbai, Dubai, London and Toronto gets its copies shipped to each address. Extra copies and extra addresses are billed at what the printer and the courier charge me, with nothing added. The print files are yours, so a reprint in twenty years does not need me.
Who it is for
Grandparents who crossed a border
Partition, East Africa, the Gulf in the seventies. They are the last people who were in the room, and their stories are the first to go.
Parents at home, children abroad
A father in Pune, a daughter in London, a son in New Jersey. The book is the one thing all three households will own the same copy of. The interviews run fine across time zones.
A date worth marking
The 80th, the 50th anniversary, the house being sold. A date gives the book a deadline, and a book without a deadline does not get finished. How to give it without it landing badly.
How it gets made
| Stage | What happens | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| The census | Who is alive, who holds what, who should be interviewed and in what order. NDA and contract signed. | The interview list and the calendar |
| The interviews | Sessions of ninety minutes, oldest people first, recorded and transcribed. | The chapter plan, before any prose |
| The archive | You send scans of the photographs and papers. I read them against the interviews. | A list of what goes in and what is missing |
| The writing | I write every page. Dated revision rounds with you and the people in the book. | Sample chapters, then the full draft |
| Design and print | Cover, layout, the tree, the photographs placed. A proof copy, then the print run. | Books at every address |
The gift book takes four months from the first session to the box at your door. A full book takes six months of writing, with design and print scheduled once the manuscript is final. A book that covers four generations and three countries can take eight to eighteen months, and I will tell you which one you are looking at in the first conversation.
What it costs
| Book | What it holds | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| One page first | A page in your family’s voice, from your own material, so you can judge before you commit | US$1,000, credited against the book |
| The gift book | One parent or both. Ten or twelve stories, about 25,000 words with photographs. Design and ten hardbacks included. | US$10,000 |
| The full book | The whole story, 60,000 to 90,000 words, every interview it needs, archive research. Design and print quoted on their own line. | US$25,000 |
A book across several generations and countries is quoted above the full book after the first conversation, because the interviews, the archive and the family diplomacy are all larger. Every fee is paid in parts against dated deliverables, and you can stop after any part and keep what is done.
Why not an app
A question-a-week service costs about a hundred US dollars a year. Your parent answers a prompt, software turns the answer into text, and a book arrives at the end. For a parent who likes to write, that is a good product.
An heirloom book is a different job. Somebody has to talk to six people separately, notice that two of them describe the same year differently, read the land deed, decide which twelve photographs out of four hundred go in, and then write it so a grandmother in Amritsar and a grandson in Sydney both recognise the family. No prompt does that. That is what the fee pays for.
What I can show you
Every family book I write is private. I cannot show you someone else’s grandmother, and you would not want me to show anyone yours.
What is public: I wrote the authorised biography of an industry stalwart, a bestseller built from records going back almost forty years. I have ghostwritten three more bestsellers, held under NDA. I have written every week since 2004.
The fair test is your own family. One page in your family’s voice, from a recording or a letter you send me, for US$1,000. If it does not sound like them, you have lost very little.
Questions families ask
How much does a family heirloom book cost?
The gift book is US$10,000 with design and ten hardbacks included. The full book is US$25,000 for the writing, with design and print quoted separately. A multi-generation book is quoted after the first conversation. A single page in your family’s voice is US$1,000 and is credited against the book.
How long does it take?
Four months for the gift book, including print. Six months of writing for the full book, then design and print. Eight to eighteen months for a book across several generations and countries.
Which languages can the interviews be in?
English, Hindi and Punjabi, in whatever mix the person speaking thinks in. The book is written in English. A Hindi or Gujarati edition is a separate commission with a separate translator.
Can relatives in other countries be interviewed?
Yes. That is the usual case. The interviews run on video and voice, scheduled around each person’s mornings, and the books ship to every address.
Can the recipes and the family tree go in?
Yes. The tree is drawn from the first conversation and checked against the interviews. Recipes go in with the person who cooked them and the stories around the food, taken down while they cook.
What if my parent or grandparent is unwell?
Then we start with the interviews, at whatever pace they can manage, and the book follows. The recordings are the part with an expiry date. Everything else can wait.
Who owns the book?
You do. An NDA is signed before anyone tells me anything, and the copyright is assigned to you on the final payment. My name appears nowhere unless you want it there.
Can we print more copies later?
Yes. The print files are yours. Extra copies at the time are billed at the printer’s price, and a reprint years later does not need me.
Start with the oldest person in the house.
Tell me who is still here, where the family lives and what is in the trunk. I respond within 48 hours.