SONGS ON ENDLESS REPEAT

Fragments from an unfinished life.

In his first book of stories, Afterparties, Veasna So (1992-2020) took readers to California’s Central Valley to explore the lives of second-generation Cambodian Americans and their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles—people who fled their home during the Khmer Rouge’s campaign of genocide during the 1970s. Sadly, the author did not live to see his debut become a critical and commercial success. This anthology is a collection of writings he left behind, a mix of fiction and nonfiction, some previously published, some appearing for the first time. The essays cover a broad range of topics. In tone, they range from the thoroughly personal to the erudite, and the fact that the most scholarly piece is about reality TV says a lot about this writer’s ability to mix so-called high and low style. There’s a lot happening in this critique, but one anecdote stands out: Veasno So’s description of watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s food-and-wine expert crown the homecoming king and queen at Syracuse University—an event that would have been surreal even if the author hadn’t been high on poppers. An astute, heartfelt review of the film Crazy Rich Asians, written for n+1, begins with a paragraph that is, all by itself, a tiny masterpiece. “Baby Yeah” is about the author’s love of Pavement and a friend who took his own life, and reading it knowing that he lost his own life to an accidental drug overdose is devastating. Most of the fiction here is from Straight Thru Cambotown, the novel Veasna So was working on at the time of his death. It seems impossible to read these excerpts without wishing for more—from these characters, from this narrative, for this author.

Another posthumous publication from a writer who was only just discovering his brilliance.