Currycel: A Novel

by Samir M. Soni

In a culture that often portrays South Asian men as either sexless or sexual predators, 29-year-old Indian American Aryan Chandlo has struck out with every woman he has ever approached. So, he does the one thing no young man should ever do: he Googles “how to get a date.”

Alongside the pickup artistry and men’s rights activism in the manosphere, he finds the involuntary celibate (incel) community on Reddit. Among these edgelords and gamer geeks, a subgroup of Indian incels (currycels) tell him exactly what he wants to it isn’t his fault he is alone, but rather women’s fault for being racist against Asian men. Over time, Aryan is drawn deeper and deeper into their misogynistic and defeatist ideology, posting rants denouncing feminism, which he believes enables women’s racism towards Asian men.

However, he soon comes to an important feminism isn’t the cause of his problems, it’s the solution.

Currycel takes readers through the strange rabbit hole that leads some Asian American men from antiracism to misogyny, and then sketches a path back to feminism. This novel offers an in-depth look at one of the darkest corners of the internet, the subreddit r/incels, during its heyday before it was shut down in 2016. Currycel also presents a journey through the quagmire that is online dating.

Heterosexual dating in the US is broken, but feminism can help us fix it.

337 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 16, 2024

About the author

Samir M Soni is a heterosexual Indian American cisgender man. Though he has never identified as a currycel, he has studied their forums and online spaces extensively for this novel. Also, like many incels, he has struggled with anxiety and depression. He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychobiology from UCLA, a Bachelor’s Degree in English from UC Irvine, and finally, a PhD in English from UCLA, specializing in race and gender in British fiction. His dissertation, The Anglo-Indian Novel, 1774-1825: Ameliorative Imperialisms, presents a detailed look at the advent of British fiction set in India. He has also published an article in the academic journal, European Romantic Review, titled "A more dreadful punishment Draco himself could not devise:” Loss of Caste in Anglo-Indian Fiction, 1790–1823. This is his first published novel. He lives in Los Angeles with his wonderful wife, a temperamental cat, and the cutest dog in the world.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an admittedly biased review since I'm Samir's spouse :) but still hopefully some helpful info.
This book is targeted towards Asian American men, and I fit in neither of those categories. But I love reading books that show me a different life experience, and this was definitely one of those books! It was fascinating to see a person on the dark path to becoming an incel, and then turning things around and finding a good life without all of the misogyny and racism that fills incel forums. But I did also relate to the women in the book -- I had a lot of cringey moments thinking back to my interactions with boys in high school, and realizing that they might have been even more awkward than I was!