Coming from immigrants and surrounded by people who didn't look like me, I was obsessive about observing the world, paying attention to the social cues, the unsaid rules, the hurdles I had to face by being other. I spent a lot of my time growing up paying attention. And the following generation who are watching the world with sharp eyes, more conscious of the unsaid rules, attuned to how "other" they really are and their growing awareness of the gap that separates them. New immigrants creating space for themselves while struggling to retain their strength and dignity. It's a short story collection that brings together the worm pickers, nail technicians, bus drivers and farm workers at the edges of society. Randy Travis, Mani Pedi, You Are So Embarrassing are also notable. Picking worms, about a girl who joins her mother to her worm picking job on her weekends off is another good one. They balanced out in the end so 3* from me.Ī standout was the story about a creator of wedding Invitations in Lao who can predict the future of a marriages ( The Universe Would Be So Cruel ).
Some stories touched me but others not so much. More often than not, the characters cannot adapt to their new life, they miss home, families are broken, and identities are forgotten.
I found the collection to be sad and desolate although there are some glimmers of hope from time to time. How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection about the experience of being a Lao immigrant in Canada (mostly). There is not much about the country I was visiting but I discovered a whole new universe. However, she is of Lao origin and although she was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, she was raised and lives in Toronto, Canada. I read this book during my trip to Thailand because the author was born there. In a taut, visceral prose style that establishes her as one of the most striking and assured voices of her generation, Thammavongsa interrogates what it means to make a living, to work, and to create meaning. A mother coaches her daughter in the challenging art of worm harvesting. A young woman tries to discern the invisible but immutable social hierarchies at a chicken processing plant. A failed boxer discovers what it truly means to be a champion when he starts painting nails at his sister's salon.
The stories that make up How to Pronounce Knife focus on characters struggling to find their bearings in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values.
Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this - moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language. In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780316422130.
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