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A review by micaelabrody
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.5
4.5 - i loved this. i am always here for a book of short stories that are loosely interconnected - in this, very loosely interconnected, but still it adds a great depth to an already thoughtful and honest collection. it took a few stories for this to click for me, but once it did it really clicked - and when i went back to flip through later i found they worked for me in the end.
some things in this book are universal - as a child of suburban ennui myself, the restlessness and dissatisfaction that permeates so’s stories really hit home. (and provided an easy soundtrack for me to use in california pop-punk, by the way.) other elements were relatable to me if not my exact experience - the really nuanced and often funny exploration of intergenerational trauma, including its humor, was fantastic. obviously i don’t even need to say that i am many more generations removed, my family escaped pogroms not the shoah, i don’t have the unique experiences of a first-generation immigrant, etc etc. but, the passage right at the beginning about parents' opaque cultural touchstones ("she'd do something as simple as drink a glass of ice water and her father, from across the room, would bellow, 'there were no ice cubes in the genocide!'") made me laugh out loud at how it sounded so much like my family saying i was "so american" for using a topsheet.
but the parts that are specific to the first-generation cambodian culture that so is portraying were wonderfully done as well, shining the most. his attention to detail, both personal and environmental, is fantastic, and his compassion for his characters is matched by his willingness to poke fun at them - from every angle this delighted and impressed.
i’m glad these were in a collection when i read them. putting them all together added a lot to the reading experience and i think they would have felt flatter without each other. again, i’m a sucker for this in general and especially for the weaving of a community through connected stories, which this did well, but i think that's why i felt a little more meh about the first few until i found his rhythm and context. (hypocritically, one of my critiques of this is that he hits some of the same themes hard in multiple stories - at times this worked really well to emphasize that same intergenerational trauma i mentioned but at times it was a little repetitive.)
i learned midway through reading this that anthony so passed away - a tragedy at any age of course, but what an incredible talent to lose especially so young. i’m so sorry i won’t have a chance to read any more of his work.
standouts:
maly maly maly
the shop
the monks**
somaly serey, serey somaly
generational differences
some things in this book are universal - as a child of suburban ennui myself, the restlessness and dissatisfaction that permeates so’s stories really hit home. (and provided an easy soundtrack for me to use in california pop-punk, by the way.) other elements were relatable to me if not my exact experience - the really nuanced and often funny exploration of intergenerational trauma, including its humor, was fantastic. obviously i don’t even need to say that i am many more generations removed, my family escaped pogroms not the shoah, i don’t have the unique experiences of a first-generation immigrant, etc etc. but, the passage right at the beginning about parents' opaque cultural touchstones ("she'd do something as simple as drink a glass of ice water and her father, from across the room, would bellow, 'there were no ice cubes in the genocide!'") made me laugh out loud at how it sounded so much like my family saying i was "so american" for using a topsheet.
but the parts that are specific to the first-generation cambodian culture that so is portraying were wonderfully done as well, shining the most. his attention to detail, both personal and environmental, is fantastic, and his compassion for his characters is matched by his willingness to poke fun at them - from every angle this delighted and impressed.
i’m glad these were in a collection when i read them. putting them all together added a lot to the reading experience and i think they would have felt flatter without each other. again, i’m a sucker for this in general and especially for the weaving of a community through connected stories, which this did well, but i think that's why i felt a little more meh about the first few until i found his rhythm and context. (hypocritically, one of my critiques of this is that he hits some of the same themes hard in multiple stories - at times this worked really well to emphasize that same intergenerational trauma i mentioned but at times it was a little repetitive.)
i learned midway through reading this that anthony so passed away - a tragedy at any age of course, but what an incredible talent to lose especially so young. i’m so sorry i won’t have a chance to read any more of his work.
standouts:
maly maly maly
the shop
the monks**
somaly serey, serey somaly
generational differences
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Death
no stories take place in the genocide and there are minimal flashbacks/explicit references, but it is mentioned frequently