Get a good book and a free hat.

Join now for $5.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get a good book and a free hat.

Join now for $5.
undefined

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the appget the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

Short stories

Afterparties

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Anthony Veasna So, on your first book!

by Anthony Veasna So

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Volume 0
Volume 0

A free gift for you.

Yes, she’s embroidered.

No thanks, just checkout

Quick take

A sharp, vibrant debut collection about Cambodian Americans trying to carve out a new path in their adopted home.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Critically_Acclaimed

    Critically acclaimed

  • Illustrated icon, Drugs_and_Alcohol

    Drug & alcohol use

  • Illustrated icon, Immigration

    Immigration

Synopsis

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.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of suicide and domestic violence.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Afterparties.

Afterparties

THREE WOMEN OF CHUCK’S DONUTS

The first night the man orders an apple fritter, it is three in the morning, the streetlamp is broken, and California Delta mist obscures the waterfront’s run-down buildings, except for Chuck’s Donuts, with its cool fluorescent glow. “Isn’t it a bit early for an apple fritter?” the owner’s twelve-year-old daughter, Kayley, deadpans from behind the counter, and Tevy, four years older, rolls her eyes and says to her sister, “You watch too much TV.”

The man ignores them both, sits down at a booth, and proceeds to stare out the window, at the busted potential of this small city’s downtown. Kayley studies the man’s reflection in the window. He’s older but not old, younger than her parents, and his wiry mustache seems misplaced, from a different decade. His face wears an expression full of those mixed-up emotions that only adults must feel, like plaintive, say, or wretched. His light-gray suit is disheveled, his tie undone.

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Why I love it

The best way to recommend Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties is to say that the book is so funny and vivid and alive that it’s possible to read it for long stretches without thinking of So’s own story. The son of Cambodian refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge, So died last year, from a drug overdose, at the age of 28. Given the historical circumstances surrounding So’s life—from parents who survived a genocidal regime to his own death amid a global pandemic—you’d think reading Afterparties might be kind of a bummer. But that isn’t the case. So’s book of short stories—which, yes, meditates on genocide and death—brims with surprising humor, buoyed by a knowing levity that some of the worst tragedies are impossible to represent straight.

Afterparties, which So described as a “stoner novel of ideas,” follows an ambling cast of young Cambodian Americans as they move in and out of their hometown of Stockton, California (where So was born). These characters are not the direct victims of the Khmer genocide, but their American-born children who inherit their memories, their stories, their trauma. On the cusp of adulthood, So’s characters also inhabit a more existential limbo—contemplating the future, while trying to mourn the past. What emerges is a collection of startlingly vibrant stories that merge the Cambodian history of a genocidal regime with the everyday American kid follies of getting high, falling in love, and not knowing quite what you’re doing.

Afterparties is a marvel—it’s everything I’ve ever wanted for the descendants of Asian American diaspora who are only just beginning to understand who we are. We’re so lucky to have it.

Member ratings (1,597)

Short stories
Neighbors and Other Stories
Table for Two
Tomb Sweeping
Lot
Fiona and Jane
Short stories
View all
Neighbors and Other Stories
Table for Two
Tomb Sweeping
Lot
Fiona and Jane