Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Afterparties is scheduled for release on August 3rd, 2021.

As I read this book I felt like by the time I finished a story I’d missed something. Most of the book read as slice of life stories, which I love, but after a while some of them began to feel like the same premise with slight variations on the same broad strokes (family, sexuality, and sense of belonging). I find that “Human Development” tackles these topics in the most engaging manner and in a way that feels most connected to present-day America.

Overall, my favorite stories were “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts,” and “Somaly Serey, Serey Somaly.”

“Three Women...” is a great leading story as it immediately grabs the reader’s attention with the introduction of this mysterious man who comes into the shop every night to sit at a table with a donut he does not touch; however, it feels out of place with most, if not all, of the other stories as it has the most obvious plot driving it and it is heavily influenced by a specific and immediate familial trauma rather than a cultural one (the genocide that is referenced frequently throughout the book).

“Somaly Serey, Serey Somaly” calls back to an earlier story, “Maly, Maly, Maly,” 23 years later, after the birth of baby Serey who is believed to be the reincarnation of Somaly, who is Maly’s mother. This story is about Serey’s journey to relieve herself of trauma that she did not experience while also being the sole caregiver for her great-aunt who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. As a child of immigrants I find Serey to be a very relatable narrator who I was able to connect with on a personal level.


CW: This book does involve the topics of death, suicide, genocide, domestic violence, stalking, and a school shooting. There are also some fairly short (0.5-2 pages give or take) but descriptive sex scenes. Some of these moments are more graphic than others but please be advised before reading.

I thought these short stories were mostly fun to read! Personally, I didn't connect with many of the stories or many of the characters, and I was at times confused with plots. I loved the writing style, but the pay-offs for some stories felt unsatisfying. I often found myself wishing the stories were longer, which isn't. bad problem for short stories to have.

Much as I wish it weren't the case, I need to start this review this way: I spent part of my 2020 lockdown catching up on about six months' worth of <i>New Yorker</i> short stories, and one of my favorites was "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts." After I finished it, I came onto Goodreads and added Anthony Veasna So's upcoming collection, <i>Afterparties</i>, to my shelf. Then I forgot about it until early December 2020, when I suddenly started thinking about the story again and looked online for more information about this book and its author. It was then I learned that Anthony Veasna So had died accidentally only a few days earlier, at the age of 28.

The thing is, this collection is great! It's laugh-out-loud funny, but every story is aiming for something bigger, every story has some aspect of the human condition it's exploring. A lot of it is related to being Cambodian American, having immigrant parents who had lived under the Khmer Rouge, living in a tight-knit community that's everything to you but trying to figure out how to live in it as young queer person, or how to leave it to pursue other dreams. The stories stand alone but also interconnect, so eventually you realize the character taking center stage in one was a minor player in a previous story, and vice versa. In this way, an entire fictional world is created. I enjoyed it so much, but every time I stopped to register the enjoyment I also registered anew that this was it. We're not going to be able to have other books by So; we're not going to be able to see him grow into an even better writer. This is it. It's impossible to separate my pleasure in this book from my knowledge that it's the only one we're going to get. As with all rare things, its rarity is part of what makes it precious.

<i>Afterparties</i> isn't perfect. As with every story collection, there are a couple that probably could have been left out. And there's some graphic sex and a bit of scatological stuff, so if that bothers you, caveat emptor. The book has a bright, sometimes rambling style that appealed to me, but may not be for everyone. Even so, Anthony Veasna So is basically the very definition of a young writer to watch. Except, except...

I'm somewhere between 4 and 5 stars and am rounding up because to do otherwise seems ridiculous, and I recommend everyone give this one a try. I received this ARC via NetGalley; thank you to the publisher.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for a copy of this book in response for an honest review!

Afterparties is an expertly written book of short stories about Cambodian American experiences. The stories are slice of life vignettes that intermix the joy and trauma experienced by the characters and community. The characters were so clearly written and individualistic, completely believable as real people.

The book didn’t always resonate with me personally. Many of the stories' payoffs didn’t fully work for me, sometimes the stories seemed to meander without reaching a clear destination. I enjoyed the cultural references and integrations, and I think they would really resonate with people familiar with these experiences.

I am absolutely moved by reading Afterparties. Anthony Veasna So is a voice that will be sorely missed. Even the fact of reading this enormously important piece of writing and knowing there will not be any to follow is a heavy weight on the heart and mind.

Born just minutes from Stockton in 1989, I felt grateful to be opened to a world I had not known anything about. I felt at home in So's stories. Each one seemed to sneakingly connect to the other in a way that was massively important, yet written as just a slip of story telling. The depth of the lives that are spoken to is worth letting yourself drown in--I am tears for Ma Eng, aching heart for Anthony and Ben, and a frustrated, red-faced teen for the badminton boys. What is done well here is So's ability to put his own life into each of these pages, each of these experiences, and really speak to being Cambodian (Khmer) in America following a violent genocide. The sustaining of community. The passing on of tradition.

I am grateful for the queerness, the tender joy, and the absolute holding of So's writing. "Know that we've always kept on living. What else could we have done?"

This short story collection of stories about Cambodians living in America as incredible and should not be missed. Anthony Veasna So, however, is greatly missed.

There reached a point reading Afterparties where I was convinced Anthony Veasna So was writing nonfiction. So's mastery of the written word created a world rich with compelling characters and deep surroundings. So's focus on Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans also provided a narrative highly underrepresented in literature, without tokenizing any character from its wide cast. Even more impressive is how many of the stories are woven and connected together, as the stories all take place in the same surrounding area of California.

So's strongest stories are those which focus intensely on a particular character. Each story displays how trauma has affected an entire community, even those who are an ocean away from memories of genocide, poverty, and war. Superking Son Scores Again is a great story as it blends the past generational traumas with the pressures and expectations of young students today, but using badminton as a driving force for the story. Human Development focuses on a teacher who is teaching Moby Dick to students, while surrounded by a sea of connections who are making plenty of money focusing on technological advancements and applications. This story was particularly memorable, as the main character is both envious and flawed, but still trying to find his own meaning after graduating from esteemed universities. There are plenty of stories which don't focus on students or education at all, such as Three Women of Chuck's Donuts and Generational Differences, which all bring something to think about and relish in their own right. While some of the middle stories blend together at times, this is mostly the result of certain stories shining more brightly than others than any story being particularly dim or boring.

Upon learning of Anthony Veasana So's untimely death, I found it saddening that there would be no second collection of stories. Still, So's debut feels like an instant classic--a must have for any bookshelf.

Well written short stories about Cambodian Americans who deal with sexuality, race, class, and the inherited trauma of the Khmer Rouge genocide. I found this community interesting to learn about. Some of the stories felt like they were long and dragged on, but I loved the story "Human Development".


Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for proving me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Afterparties is scheduled for release on August 3rd, 2021.

For those who don’t already know, Anthony Veasna So passed away at 28 this past December, less than a year before this was supposed to come out. What he’s left the world with here is a really touching collection that I think we’re lucky to have. I liked some stories more than others, but as a whole I thought these were funny and surprising and varied, but still really cohesive, with strong connections of family and different meanings of Cambodian-ness and gayness and Californian-ness throughout. It’s a great collection by an author lost way way way too soon.

A gift! It’s pretty amazing how poetic the writing is while touching upon generational trauma while also being funny. It’s a hard balancing act especially when talking about genocidal regimes. I think the theme of all the stories is children of immigrant loving and being thankful for their parents despite their or maybe even because of their faults (that usually originate from living through and escaping a genocide).

I’ve never read a Cambodian American author, but I was excited about doing so. Overall I enjoyed these stories, some more than others. I loved the LGBT representation in the majority of these stories, and my favorite was “The Shop”... there is something familiar and comforting about So’s writing, it’s really transporting. Such an urgency while maintaining humor and wit while calling attention to the queer experience and intergenerational trauma. I think some stories could’ve been improved by being shortened but overall I enjoyed the collection. I also love the cover art.

Each story is unique, but you can feel the undercurrent of the familial trauma in each character. The characters in these stories deal with family obligations, sexuality, race, regret, addiction, and legacy. Some of the stories are interwoven, with characters appearing in each other’s stories. Like most short story collections, I did feel that some chapters were stronger than others.
This was the first time I’ve read a story featuring Cambodian Americans, and I enjoyed reading each voice and getting to know more about their culture. I am sad to hear about the author’s recent passing, as I was looking forward to his next work. I hope others are able to read this work of his and that it receives the praise it rightfully deserves.

There’s so much bittersweetness surrounding Anthony Veasna So’s debut story collection — his untimely, tragic death casts a chilly sense of loss across “Afterparties,” because reading these stories (which I’ve done again and again and again) reveals what a meteoric, powerful, and urgent voice he possessed. We can only be thankful that he left us these pages, and in them his irreverent, hilarious, witty, smart, and always-tender portraits of queerness and Khmer lives and steep intergenerational trauma.

The first story, “Three Women at Chuck’s Donuts,” sets itself up as a kind of mystery that prongs into philosophical inquiry (what does it mean to be Khmer?), the conspiracies and collective paranoia among post-autogenocide Khmers, and reflections on family and failed masculinity. “The Shop,” my favorite story, strips the narrator — a college graduate who moves back home and works at his father’s car repair shop — down to the familiar tensions of second-generation kids, with heartfelt and heartbreaking micro-epiphanies scaling toward the smack-in-the-forehead realization of its final paragraphs. Other stories focus on profane, cigarette-smoking monks; a mother who writes a letter to her son about a school shooting in Stockton; the alleged transmigration of an autogenocide victim into the body of a nursing home caretaker; and a young post-grad “Moby Dick”-obsessed teacher in San Francisco who starts dating an app developer. There’s freshness and innovation in every story, a sincere and visible attempt to “queer” form, to tease the short story itself into new utterances and wavelengths. Despite all the exaggerated language (there’s deliberate hyperbole here—lots of screaming and gesticulating and energy—possibly inspired by So’s interest in comics) and hyper-smart/cheeky/funny narrators (So was into stand-up), there is always a deep, sometimes unexpected, and invariably wrenching vulnerability that graces each story and infuses the entirety of its pages with warmth, pain, love, earnestness. There’s heart in these lines, reader. I am still thinking about his characters, still moved.

The deal: Vibrant, often darkly comedic stories about Cambodian-American life from Anthony Veasna So, who unexpectedly passed away at the age of 28 in December.

Is it worth it?: Entirely. These stories are so excellent, cutting and sharp and moving, and for lack of better description: alive. I’m gutted about So’s passing and y’all should absolutely read this.

Pairs well with: badminton, the documentary “The Donut King,” educating yourself on the Khmer Rouge genocide

A-

Afterparties is a short story collection that unites the experiences of Cambodian Americans living in California. As best as I can recall, it is the first Cambodian American author whose work I have read. Across these stories the author paints a realistic albeit heartbreaking account of the Cambodian experience in the US - including those who arrived as refugees as well as the next generations.

Stories are situated in what appear to be real contexts, demonstrating the typical jobs held by Cambodians (donut shops and auto repair), and most of all the devastating consequences of intergenerational trauma. Almost each and every story depicts the suffering of those who were victims of the Cambodian genocide, and the manner in which this has been transmitted into the psyche of future generations. While the elders tell their stories with great affliction, the younger generations are self deprecating, referring to themselves as "Cambos" as they seek to find their place in the US as a fairly unique population. The struggle to understand this is best understood in a quote from a Cambodian American young woman in the story "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts" : "What does it mean to be Khmer, anyway? How does one know what is and is not Khmer? Have most Khmer people always known, deep down, that they're Khmer? Are there feelings Khmer people experience that other's don't?" Also, at least half of the stories feature LGBTGQ characters, and their fight for acceptance within a culture that shuns their sexual orientation.

I felt that some of the stories were a little too long and sometimes almost overdone, but in all, this book offers a very edifying and necessary read.

I can't wait till this one comes out so I can page through a physical copy. It took me a while to catch on to the fact that these stories are linked, but once I realized that, I was hooked. I was suddenly able to zoom out and get the big picture while at the same time focusing on the details. And the details! So wonderfully chosen. Each story's characters and world feel fully formed without being overwhelming. That's a fine line to walk in any writing, but especially in short fiction. Truly a wonderful collection.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC.

Afterparties reminds me of Drown by Junot Diaz, his first collection of short stories. Both were written by young, talented writers wrestling to get control of their talents, pinning their ideas into quicksilver stories. They are the kind of collections that book reviewers will call “electric” and “gritty” which are codewords for, “young people of color writing about sex, drugs, and young people bristling against their elders.”

Anthony Veasna So was a Cambodian-American writer, a descendant of a country whose entire educated and artistic class was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge. His voice is a rare and vital inclusion into the contemporary catalogue.

The first half of the collection fell flat for me. The cultural valley between the narrators and their parents--often those who had escaped the Khmer Rouge genocide--presents us with nothing that hasn’t been written before by immigrant writers. Veasna So was under no obligation to mine this grief for an American audience, but the references he did make were glancing or predictable.

The tone didn’t coalesce for me either. The actions were exaggerated and jokes clever, enticing us to laugh at the flat characters and their ridiculous characterizations. Some of the cultural references were outdated, other times trying to be cool, and occasionally they came across as painfully forced. Was this satire? Sitcom humor? Generic slang? For each sparkling line, there were several others that needed to be cut.

The second half of the collection is stronger, however, starting with the story entitled “The Shop.” We get messy sex and stunted expectations, coming to terms with the limits of a relationship while decoding how family members view you. As Veasna So assumes narrators closer to his own age and perspective (or so it seems) the stories find momentum and purpose. The tensions between generations are cracked open and he sifts through shards with more clarity and insight.

A great talent, still blossoming, leaves us enticed and pondering what he could have written in his lifetime.

A deliciously fun short story collection that is emotive and inspiring at the same time. So has such a unique voice, I can't wait to see what comes from them next. This was such a visceral experience that really encapsulated LA while giving me insight into a community I wasn't familiar with before. Incredible.

During the pandemic I have found myself unable to stick to short story collections, even though they used to be one of my favorite forms of storytelling. Luckily for me, this was a collection I could stick to. Anthony Veasna So writes an honest and vulnerable group of stories based on the lives of Cambodian-Americans living in California. There are recurring characters, which for me helped the stories feel jointed together and kept me interested. So's writing is truly gorgeous; it is witty and smart and emotional. The loss of So's voice in future works is devastating; this is a piece to revisit and reflect upon.

Cambodian American writer Anthony Veasna So's stories are brilliantly written. He has a talent for bringing in the reader quickly and efficiently to the lives and worlds of the characters - a special treat for avid readers of short story genre. This is a side of Asian America that we do not get to see very often, vividly rendered and without unnecessary explanation or defense. It's such a shame that we lost this author before we could see the full potential of his work.