Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

A touching and insightful collection of stories that throw light on the lives of Lao immigrants in Canada. I particularly enjoyed those, like the title stories, which were about language and its barriers and bridges. After the first few stories the tone felt a little safe and similar and I started to long for something that I could really get my teeth into. It's probably a collection that benefits from being read in small bursts rather than one sitting.

I enjoyed these stories a lot with their thoughtful explorations on families, focussing on the lives of Laos immigrants and their children. I particularly enjoyed that the parents depicted really do try to do the best for their children (especially contrasted to the horrible parents in this years crop of Women's Prize longlisted books) even if they sometimes miss the mark or sometimes cannot be the parent they would love to be if they had more time/ money/ knowledge.

A collection of short stories, linked by the theme of each touching on immigration and written from a Lao background. Each story was like a little jewel, giving you just enough to feel like you know that character, even the children, with their own voices. The one that sticks in my mind is a wedding invitation printer, desperate to follow Lao traditions. Very enjoyable!

How To Pronounce Knife, Souvankham Thammavongsa’s debut collection of short stories, was also one of my most anticipated 2020 titles. All the stories are set in a city that is deliberately unnamed, left sketchy around the edges, although I had the sense from a couple of references that we are somewhere in Canada. All, also, deal with the lives of Lao immigrants and their children, although not all of the stories are primarily about immigration or ethnicity. What I found so impressive about these quiet stories, in fact, is the way that they don’t cluster around one specific theme; Thammavongsa is sharply insightful on a number of registers. Childhood is one of these, and Thammavongsa’s thoughts on writing in the voice of a child are worth reading. The title story, which deals with a small girl trying to navigate between her family’s culture and the world of school, completely gets how frustrating it is for children not to be heard, and how adults continually fail to understand how, when young children are angry about one thing, it’s often something much bigger than just that thing.

However, Thammavongsa takes us into the head of an older woman who has just begun a sexy affair with a much younger man with equal conviction (‘Slingshot’), upturning our received ideas about age, sex, and the way that these attributes structure power dynamics in a relationship. She writes beautifully about how chicken plant worker Red (‘Paris’) only knows one kind of love: ‘that simple, uncomplicated, lonely love one feels for oneself on the quiet moments of the day. It was there, steady and solid in the laughter and talk of the television and with her in the grocery aisles on the weekends’. She vividly details the different work worlds of a man working in a nail salon (‘Mani Pedi’) and a woman picking worms in a field (‘Picking Worms’). Occasionally, a story seems to draw away from its climax rather than landing with the conviction of the others in this collection, and Thammavongsa sometimes goes for an easy emotional beat rather than pressing for something more interesting (‘Her sense of taste comes and goes now’, muses an older woman after having a stroke in ‘You Are So Embarrassing’. ‘Most of the time it all tastes bitter. And all that bitterness in her mouth is hard to swallow.’) However, these are rare missteps in a collection that is otherwise consistently good.

This collection of short stories is delicate and simple yet effective - especially if like me, you're a first-gen immigrant.
The stories are beautiful, though some are hard to read. I especially enjoyed PARIS - the women are complex and although from different worlds, the mutual support at the end is heartbreaking and powerful.

The stories are short and standalone which makes this a good book to read on the commute or to pick up when you've got a few mins free. They are also deep and engaging so you can binge the stories on one sitting.

Would recommend although I am aware that not everyone will relate and therefore engage as deeply with the characters and their stories. It's not to say that this anthology is only for a select few though - good writing should be enjoyed by everyone.

Another great book from a Southeast Asian writer 🎉 This powerful debut collection of short stories from Canadian-Laotian Souvankam Thammavongsa possesses the sort of stillness you find in Raymond Carver’s work. Most of the stories are about Laotian refugees newly arrived in Canada; all are about the strive for humanity - the desire to be seen, to be wanted, to make something good of oneself. In Mani-Pedi a former boxer starts employ in his sister’s nail salon (called Bird Spa and Salon, with the slogan Nails Cheap Cheap!). The women take to him quickly, this bulk of muscle gently buffing their nails; he warms to the salon as a place which nurtures, so unlike the destruction of the boxing ring. He develops a crush on a client he calls Miss Emily, and is crushed when she walks in one day hand-in-hand with a man, who is of course immaculately tailored and polished. Later his sister scolds him for daring to hope and he says ‘I know I don’t got a chance in hell, but it’s something to get me through. It’s to get through the next hour, the next day. Don’t you go reminding me what dreams a man like me ought to have. That I can dream at all means something to me.’ In Slingshot, a 70 year old woman starts having casual sex with her 32 year old womanising neighbour. He remains besotted with his ex-girlfriend Eve, and when the unlikely pair visit Eve and her boyfriend’s house he says ‘“Well, I’m in love,” and pointed to me. “With her.” We laughed, Richard and I, as if this was our joke and Eve was outside it. You can do that with a joke, hide how you feel and mean what you say at the same time, and no one will ask you which it is.’ He will not love her the way she wants to be loved, so she loves him differently - passively and without hope. In The School Bus Driver, a man watches as his shy, plain wife begins an affair with her Canadian boss under his nose and morphs into a sex siren. ‘Be cool’, his wife tells him, sounding exactly like her lover with the Jaguar and the ‘bonus’ payments for their mortgage. She starts calling him Jay instead of his Laotian name Jai. Humiliated and helpless, he clings onto Jai reminding himself ‘It means heart. Heart.’

Thammavongsa's writing style is clear and intimate and "How to pronounce knife" is a short stories collection that suceeds in expressing a lot in a short and concise space; her work’s well worth checking out.

This was an interesting collection as it seemed to feature a wide variety of voices in this. I did think a couple did go on for too long but there was enough balance for the most part that the tone and length was generally about long enough for what it was trying to say.

I am perhaps not the best suited to judge a collection of short stories, I am struggling to think of more than a handful that I’ve read but, suitability issues aside, this is a stunning collection and debut from Souvankam Thammavongsa. Each story within the collection focuses on the experiences of Lao immigrants and refugees living in a never-named English speaking city but there isn’t the kind of sharp focus on pain and trauma we’ve come to expect from books clearly aimed at white audiences. These are quietly powerful tableaus of individuals, families, couples trying to make a life for themselves in a new place.

Each of the fourteen stories have a power and life of their own and the manner in which Souvankham manages to create such empathy and connection in just a handful of pages is utterly remarkable. Not only are each of the stories wonderful in themselves, they have been curated into a collection that sings like a perfectly crafted playlist. These could certainly be dipped in and out of, but there is true skill in the way these have been layered, with interlinking themes that weave in and out. Many of the narrators are children and a theme that appears time and time again and is particularly affecting is the heartbreaking necessity of immigrant children to protect their parents, whether it’s from the embarrassment of language constraints or the lash of a slur that hasn’t been understood.

Born herself in a refugee camp in Thailand, across 14 stories, Souvankam reminds us of the absolute, joyful necessity of engaging with own voice authored stories. This isn’t the ‘well-researched trauma porn’ we so often see from ‘well meaning’ white authors, it hasn't been written to elicit a specific emotional response from its (target white) audience, it’s a glance through a window, a flicker of understanding, a brush with empathy and it’s at times funny, touching, painful and evocative.

How To Pronounce Knife is a very readable collection of short stories about the immigrant experience. I particularly enjoyed the stories that were from a child’s point of view.