Afterparties was featured on several lists of the best books of 2021, but even if that is not enough to interest you, it’s still worth reading – it is one of the very few available books about Cambodia and the Cambodian diaspora.
Anthony Veasna So is not afraid of any, even the most controversial topics, and his full-blooded, sometimes almost exaggerated heroes are straightforward, which makes the stories fresh and unpretentious. Afterparties touches, with a large dose of humor and distance, upon subjects such as sexuality (often quite vividly described), culture, addictions, searching for the meaning of life, religion, successful and unsuccessful relationships. It ironically and sarcastically breaks down the subject of belonging, race and identity into prime factors.
Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts, the opening story of the collection gives a great taste of the absurd vibe: a suspicious man starts coming to the donut shop and hangs out there for hours for incomprehensible reasons – he doesn’t even like donuts. The owner’s daughters are watching him and trying to discover the motives of his actions and find out if, like them, he is Khmer – but the answer to this question is not simple at all…
Each of the nine stories is self-contained, but because they take place in a fairly narrow geographic circle, and some places and characters appear repeatedly, you get the impression that you keep meeting friends in the neighbourhood – for So, this was the feeling of belonging to a local diaspora. Everyone here shares similar family histories: sadness and trauma related to the tragic past of older generations are constantly present, but nevertheless, the young generation already lives in a completely different world.
