Read 24 of 2022. Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So

Title: Afterparties: Stories
Author: Anthony Veasna So
Publisher: Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 978-1611856514
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 272
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

To be diverse in reading is one of the greatest joys according to me. You read diversely and you are aware about so much that goes on – and not just that, I think to some extent it also perhaps makes you a better person.

Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So is one such book. A book that makes you see people differently, their lives perhaps with a little more empathy, and more than anything else, I felt some of the stories hit harder as a gay man. Sexuality in these stories is subtle and yet makes such a huge impact on the reader.

The stories in this collection are so diverse, and from the same community – the Cambodian Americans. From “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts” where these women are seen fighting, talking, and reading Wittgenstein behind the window of their bakery in wee hours, trying desperately hard to make sense of their identity while being stuck, to “Generational Differences”, where a survivor of the Khmer Rouge has also witnessed a school shooting, and is only doing her best to raise her son differently and without any further trauma, these stories become more than just being tragic.

At the same time, these stories speak of renewal, of healing, of finding solace in the mundane and the monotonous. So’s people are mostly queer, angry, romantic, hopeful, and displaced – survivors of the genocide, trying to find their way in the world.

Afterparties is a collection of stories that is predictable, also unassuming sometimes, and lets its characters explore detours and various twists in the tale through the complexities of their cultural identity. Please read it.

*Anthony Veasno So died from a drug overdose in 2020. He was twenty-eight years old.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Title: Convenience Store Woman
Author: Sayaka Murata
Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 978-0802128256
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 176
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

The comfort in the constant. That’s how I have preferred to live life, to be honest. It never happens this way. Not all the time. Not ever, come to think of it. Yet, I have also learned how to turn the change into being constant over a period of time. Isn’t that what it is really? The humdrum of the sameness. The monotony of the constant. The familiar is utmost reassuring if nothing else. But that’s just for me, and rereading “Convenience Store Woman” got all those feelings to the fore, emerging one by one from the shadows, overwhelming me to the point of tears.

I shall try not to get the personal involved in this review. I try, but I do not guarantee. Anyway, back to the book. Sayaka Murata has written close to ten novels (I think) and this is the first time one of her books is translated to English. I read this book for the first time last year. There were too many emotions I was dealing with after finishing it. Most of them were a product of the read. The loneliness, the making peace with it, the awareness of using the familiar as a crutch, the times I had ideas or thoughts I shouldn’t have had – all of these were in sync with the protagonist Keiko Furukura’s way of being. I related so strongly with her (most of her, not all) that I was almost scared of reviewing this book.

August is the month of women in translation. This is my first read of the month and a reread that I enjoyed and loved. So here goes: As the title suggests, the book is about a Convenience Store and a person who works there. Keiko considered herself reborn once she joined the store. Her life is divided almost into two parts – before and after joining the store. She is awkward, she is clueless about how to fit in the world, and she struggles with day-to-day interactions. Yet, beneath the surface there is the Keiko that wants to blend in, wants to feel included, and live life according to the manual – get married, have kids, and get people off your back. Keiko has been made to feel like “damaged goods” throughout her life – by her parents, friends, baby sister, and colleagues. The idea of “change” or “cure” oneself runs deep in the book. It is in a way the plot-point through which Murata mocks the society we inhabit.

The book deals with so many broad questions that people face every single day. I will get to that in a bit. Though the book is set in Japan, it is universal in its approach. Murata touches on loneliness, middle-age, the way we see ourselves against the parameters set by society (marriage, child-birth, job satisfaction, what job you do, whether you fit in or not, and the gender stereotypes set for us from the time we are born), and above all of this the need to belong at a very basic level – that of acceptance.

Keiko and Shiraha (A part-time worker at the store. That’s all I can reveal about him) are so different and of course similar on all counts. Murata’s characters are constantly on the edge, on the brink of falling apart or coming together to save what they can of themselves, and more than anything they are about life being lived in the mundane with pragmatism and ironically hope at the same time.

The translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori is nuanced in every single way, and like I said would appeal to every single reader, in any part of the world. Ginny transports us to the store, and Keiko’s world with a sudden rush as it should be and before you know it, as a reader you don’t want to leave the world created by Murata. For every translation, it must be so difficult to get the exact phrase, the nature of the dream, aspirations, and thoughts of characters down to pat the way the author intended it. The translator also then is nothing but a co-writer of the book in the truest sense of the word.

Convenience Store Woman’s title when read in Japanese is Convenience Store Human or Person and that to me makes more sense. It somehow adds that layer of making it common – of the tonality it deserves even if it is also in the title. But that is something that can be overlooked in a jiffy only because the book is par excellence. It touches all the notes – the awkward ones, the peculiar, the bitingly familiar, the hauntingly real, the one that sets you apart, and achingly wants to be a part of the world at large. This August, it being Women in Translation, please do read this book. You must.

 

Open Me by Lisa Locascio

Title: Open Me
Author: Lisa Locascio
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 978-0802128072
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 288
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 Stars

“Open Me” may seem like a strange book till it doesn’t and then you actually start enjoying it. “Open Me” is electrifying in so many ways – physical, emotional, spiritual, political and most of all when there are differences in relationships and how it impacts us at the core of who we are. It is a tale of sexual awakening from the outside and yes maybe that’s a part of what it is, because there is so much more in this book. It doesn’t stand on just being another “erotic” novel. There are layers, sublayers, a lot of agency, tone and detail in its pages which should not be missed.

Roxana has just graduated from high-school and is raring to go get an “experience”. To live the way she would like to. She dreams of visiting Paris with her childhood best friend, Sylvie, and as she makes her way to Paris, she realizes that the tour group has rerouted her to Denmark (fascinating and dark at the same time, isn’t it?). I must stop the review here and tell you how much I loved this and how scared I was about this happening to me at the same time. Also, Roxana resolves to go, despite her reservations and doesn’t tell her parents about this. She arrives in Copenhagen, and meets a blue-eyed Dane named Søren Holmsgaard. He is a grad student writing his dissertation on American literature and before she knows it Roxana is head over heels for him. Their affair begins early on till Roxana abandons a planned trip to Farsø with Søren so he can work on his dissertation, and while he takes off, she meets Zlata, a Bosnian refugee and she starts dating him as well.

Let me tell you that if you think this book is anything typical or cliché or ridden with stereotypes, you should stop thinking that right now. It isn’t any of that and I am only too glad for that. The relationship dynamics between the three of them and how the boys vie for Roxana’s attention is worth reading and exploring. Roxana’s coming-of-age in a way and at the same time exploring her sexual awakening without any apprehension or doubt is refreshing for a reader and to then mingle politics with it, takes the read to another level.

“Open Me” is frank, outspoken and says what it has to without any fuss. Locascio tells the story the way it should be told – with no frills. The emotional and physical aspects of the novel are rich and are definitely not dumbing it down for the reader. “Open Me” is interesting, captivating and quite an emotional rollercoaster of a ride.