psilotum reviewed Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
Review of 'Afterparties' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Great collage of stories.
hardcover, 256 pages
English language
Published Aug. 3, 2021 by Ecco.
4 stars
(6 reviews)
Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor 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 …
Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor 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 humor, 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.
ElectricMari reviewed Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
Heartbreak.
4 stars
It's kind of difficult to me to be really honest in my review because I learned, during my reading, that Anthony Veasna So died, at the age of 28, a little while before his book had come out, which broke my heart. "Afterparties" is a collection of short stories about a community of cambodian refugees who had settled in California. The main characters of these stories are the sons and daughters of these refugees, young people who feel a profound dissonance between their american life and its limits imposed by racism, and a their khmer identity, with its heavy generational trauma. Some of these stories are a gem (like "Maly, Maly, Maly"). These are the stories that seem more personal to the writer, cinematographic, at times, in their themes, their dialogues, but never trivial, very genuine. It doesn't work as good whenever the author imagines a story which is evidently …
It's kind of difficult to me to be really honest in my review because I learned, during my reading, that Anthony Veasna So died, at the age of 28, a little while before his book had come out, which broke my heart. "Afterparties" is a collection of short stories about a community of cambodian refugees who had settled in California. The main characters of these stories are the sons and daughters of these refugees, young people who feel a profound dissonance between their american life and its limits imposed by racism, and a their khmer identity, with its heavy generational trauma. Some of these stories are a gem (like "Maly, Maly, Maly"). These are the stories that seem more personal to the writer, cinematographic, at times, in their themes, their dialogues, but never trivial, very genuine. It doesn't work as good whenever the author imagines a story which is evidently far from its own. They seem so focused and choosing the right words and syntax that it doesn't feel real, which is a shame because it takes out off the profound ideas that he is able to share. I also feel wrong about irking at the many references (at least 2 in every story) to the cambodian genocide. I felt like, at times, it was forced into the paragraphs, almost transforming the characters into one dimensional beings. Otherwise, it was heartbreaking to feel the scar left on an entire community and its descendants.
Subjects
- Short stories
- Cambodia
- LGBT
- California
- Refugees