Afterparties

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Pub Date 19 Aug 2021 | Archive Date 20 Aug 2021
Atlantic Books | Grove Press UK

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Description

A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life - immersive, comic and unsparing - by an indisputable talent.

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tender-hearted, balancing acerbic humour with sharp emotional depth, Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship and family.

A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle's snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a 'safe space' app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter.

With nuanced emotional precision, gritty humour and compassionate insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities, the stories in Afterparties deliver an explosive introduction to the work of Anthony Veasna So.

A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life - immersive, comic and unsparing - by an indisputable talent.

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tender-hearted, balancing...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781611856514
PRICE £14.99 (GBP)

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Featured Reviews

4.5 rounded up

It's truly impressive that this a debut - there's something so assured and natural about Anthony Veasna So's writing and distinctive about his method of storytelling. The first story (Three Women of Chuck's Donuts, which is available on The New Yorker website if you're curious) was my favourite and worth the price of entry alone, but the rest of the stories are strong too, and showcase a loosely connected cast of Cambodian, Khmer and Cambodian American characters, many hailing from Stockton, California - like the author himself - and grappling with their identity and relationships, both family and personal. It seems like other elements are likely autobiographical too, but I think this just adds to the impact and authenticity of the stories.

Veasna So's untimely death in December 2020, prior to publication, at age 28 has the potential to overshadow the publication of his debut (and as others have said, likely only) collection of stories. But conversely hopefully this will introduce the book to readers who it may have otherwise passed by. Either way, this is an excellent debut and one I'd highly recommend checking out.

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Afterparties is a collection of short stories, some interlinked, about Cambodian Americans in California, and the complexities of lives as second or third generation immigrants whose families still bear the weight of genocide. From the opening story, 'Three Women of Chuck's Donuts', which follows a woman and her daughters keeping a donut shop open overnight, to the closing one, a mother's reflection on how she told her son that she had survived a school shooting as a teacher, the collection is varied and yet feels like a whole, looking at the same themes and occasionally visiting characters who played smaller roles in other stories.

I tend to prefer short story collections that connect in some way, and this one, with longer stories and a sense of continuity, was very much in that category. It explores the impact of genocide and identity on Cambodian American life, giving specific perspectives but also broader ones about immigration (especially expectations and whether or not someone lives up to them) and sexuality and the intersection of both of those. For such a personal collection, the narrators of the stories do vary quite a lot, which I enjoyed, and there's a real dark comedy edge throughout the stories.

Anthony Veasna So died before this collection could be released, something which the reader is introduced to at the start of the book. It's hard to review Afterparties without mentioning this, but it's also sad that it becomes the focus on what is a great collection that explores identity, family, and queerness.

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