As soon as I heard the premise of Saumya Dave’s , about an experimental pill that erases mothers’ guilt, I was fully invested. My oldest is 15, so I’ve had a decade and a half to notice the guilty thoughts that run through my head all day: I should be making the kids’ lunches instead of giving them money for the cafeteria. I should have gotten them involved in sports earlier and given them phones later. I even blame myself for hypotheticals outside my control, like whether my personality and genes have made them shyer or less athletic than other kids. Casting my mind back to the extra vulnerable years of early parenthood and pregnancy, the guilt spirals were even more intense. As I alternated between being a stay-at-home mom and working full time, living in the city and then the suburbs, or making all my own organic food vs. popping freezer meals in the microwave, one thing remained constant: the guilt.
So it was a relief as well as a thrill to dive into The Guilt Pill, which follows new mom Maya as she juggles parenting a newborn with her demands as CEO of a hot new startup, pressure that’s compounded by the expectations of her Indian immigrant parents. When a white woman and consummate #girlboss named Liz introduces Maya to a magic pill that erases guilt, it seems like the perfect solution—until, of course, it doesn’t. In this interview, Dave discusses her inspirations for the novel and how her psychiatric expertise and research on guilt led to some pretty fascinating revelations. Enjoy, guilt-free.
Kat Johnson: Congratulations on your new book, I absolutely love it! The Guilt Pill is a thrilling and often very funny page-turner with an incredible speculative premise. How did the idea of a pill that erases guilt come to you and how did it evolve with the story?
Saumya Dave: Thank you so much for the kind words! I became a new mom at the end of 2019, and many friends had warned me about what they called “mom guilt.” I found the first weeks of my son’s life overwhelming and told myself I’d get into a rhythm by the end of my fourth trimester. That ended up being March 2020, when everyone’s lives changed. I felt like I experienced new motherhood in a pressure cooker. Many of my friends with kids told me about their experiences with a new intensity of guilt. How would lockdown impact their children? How could they keep their families safe? I grappled with those same questions every day and was surprised at how powerful the guilt truly was.
I’m a practicing psychiatrist and one day I found my two worlds coming together. I wondered what would happen if I could prescribe a pill that could take away a mother’s guilt for several hours at a time. What would someone with that ability feel freer to do? What would improve? What would be worrisome? I always knew I wanted to explore the life of a founder, but once the idea of the pill became clearer, I was able to really sit with Maya’s character and learn more about her.
