Afterparties—A Masterpiece

How do you choose which fiction to read? I find it tricky. I trust most non-fiction book reviews and do not trust most fiction book reviews.

However, I do start with book reviews. From those reviews, I make a list of books I want to check out. Then I check them out by reading random pages within them. It’s more fun to do this in a bookstore than online but features such as “Look Inside,” work too. Out of 20 end-of-the-year book recommendations in the Los Angeles Times, I checked out six of them. Only one of them intrigued me enough to read it—Afterparties Stories by Anthony Veasna So.

This short story collection astounded me with its originality, authenticity, and craft.

Characters are believable and multi-dimensional. Many themes are explored. Plot structure is well crafted. As I read, I found myself inside the stories.

The New York Times Penelope Green aptly describes Veasna So’s stories “…crackling, kinetic and darkly comedic stories that made vivid the lives of first-generation Khmer-Americans.”

Cambodian-American worlds

Nine stories take us into markedly different Cambodian-American worlds. Every time I pass by a 24-hour donut shop, I wonder how anyone manages to survive such a grueling schedule, such a grueling business. “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts” takes us inside a 24-hour donut shop and into its adjacent underworlds.

Other stories take us inside the worlds of tech entrepreneurs, auto mechanics, grocery store owners, rebels, elite university graduates, and other aspects of Cambodian-American culture. So’s characters run the gamut of Cambodian-American experiences.

Themes

Almost every story in Afterparties involves some permutation of an actual afterparty. Different themes wind their way through the nine stories. Several stories explore the complexity of family bonds. “We Would’ve Been Princes!” explores the impact of addiction on an immediate family member. Another story shows the struggle of being highly creative in a family that doesn’t value creativity.

“Maly, Maly, Maly” takes the reader through the rituals surrounding the belief in reincarnation. Many of the stories artfully weave in Cambodian heritage and traditions.

An underlying theme of several stories is the generational trauma that resulted from the raping of the land and the genocide of 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians during the late 1970s.

Characterizations

Characterizations are nuanced and developed slowly. The reader feels as if they are getting to know someone much as one would in real life. “We Would’ve Been Princes!” takes place at the afterparty following an elaborate, traditional Cambodian wedding. The main characters are Bond and Marlon, two twenty-something brothers.

So’s precision and originality in character descriptions left me breathless, such as this description of Marlon, “Being handsome and pathetic was Marlon’s selling point. Mothers adored that poor fellow brimming with wasted possibility.”

Marlon’s younger brother Bond bears the weight of babysitting Marlon and other family responsibilities. Bond reveals his perplexity and So reveals his subtle, dark humor in Bond’s reflection, “He felt the sensation often experienced when visiting home, his parents had conceived him to work on a conveyor belt of nonsensical family issues.” 

Some stories X-rated

The short story “Human Development” portrays a recent Stanford graduate, Anthony, who is finding his way as a teacher and navigating self-doubt during summer break. While at an alumni party crowded with tech stars, he finds himself assuaging the disconnect he feels by going on Grindr. The hook-up with yet another techie, a fellow Cambodian-American man who happens to be 20 years older, ends up turning into something more. Although this story is X-rated at times, the sex scenes do not seem gratuitous. They help define Anthony’s character and his journey.

Last paragraphs

So’s final paragraphs in each of his nine short stories are so tightly constructed, they go beyond concluding paragraphs. Each one could serve as flash fiction.

Legacy

It’s tragic that So died at 28 of a drug overdose shortly after receiving his MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University. He died in December 2020 at home in San Francisco. Afterparties was published less than a year after his death.

We’ll never know how often he used drugs. Courtesy of hidden fentanyl and the ease of ordering drugs online, you don’t have to be a drug addict to die by overdose. Recreational drug users are dying too.

In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, author Dana Spiotta, one of So’s teachers at Syracuse University noted, “his accomplishment in Afterparties seems nearly perfect to me.”

Spiotta noted So’s ease with traversing so many different subjects, “from pop culture to genocide to the deep tentacles of the family romance with unfailing precision, wit, and sensitivity.”

“I believe it will influence a whole new generation of writers,” Spiotta predicted. I agree. Afterparties could be taught in a variety of college classes, and I would love to see a collection that omits the X-rated parts taught to high school students.

Note: Illustration borrowed from Loyola Marymount journalism student book review.