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Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

Short stories

Afterparties

Debut

by Anthony Veasna So

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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.

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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 (1,606)

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LGBTQ+ themes
View all
The Bones Beneath My Skin
We Could Be Rats
Isaac’s Song
The Three Lives of Cate Kay
I Might Be in Trouble
Most Wonderful
The Teller of Small Fortunes
The Crimson Crown
Blue Sisters
The Pairing
A Thousand Times Before
The Lost Story
Spitting Gold
The Lady Waiting
Five Broken Blades
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
Alice Sadie Celine
The Future
Let Us Descend
Stars in Your Eyes
You, Again
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
The Light Pirate
Kiss Her Once for Me
Foul Lady Fortune
Thistlefoot
Woman of Light
Siren Queen
Marrying the Ketchups
Yerba Buena
The Verifiers
Love & Other Disasters
Razorblade Tears
One Last Stop
Skye Falling
Honey Girl
The Prophets
Memorial
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Boy in the Red Dress
A Burning
The Vanishing Half
The Knockout Queen
Untamed
The Great Believers
Red, White & Royal Blue
Full Disclosure
Wayward Son
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
All of Us with Wings
How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom
Lot
The Deceivers
A Ladder to the Sky
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Animators