Anthony Veasna So's AFTERPARTIES-Published Posthumously-CA/Cambodian Families Who Fled Communist Killings

Anthony Veasna So's parents escaped Cambodia's the communist regime to northern CA along with a community that provided their children a safe haven in which to thrive. So's combined short stories in AFTERPARTIES is a wry exposure of the malaise of inertia that permeates the first generation of American Cambodians blessed with opportunities that seem to go awry. Living with the omnipresent lament of their parents and elders it was often heard, "We escaped the Communists. So what are boys like you doing?" The next generation never achieve expectations. Pressure to produce proves overbearing as the majority of young people, more so for young gay Cambodians, and most  succumb to the status quo, "Guys who never left our hometown, who stayed committed to a dusty CA free of ambition or beaches." embedded in these stories are quirky, likable characters whose self-awareness and acknowledgements of their families' antiquated customs, create endearing stories of generational and social divides. The Cambodian genocide shrouds all 11 stories. In the first story, "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts" a single mother of two girls brings them with her to her flailing donut shop. She's plagued by the menacing presence of a Cambodian patron she fears will harm her and her daughters  having located her. The young girls use their imagination to construct their own stories about the man that are far more innocuous and entertaining. In "Superking Son Scores Again," a young Cambodian who was hailed as a badminton star is now the proprietor of a languishing grocery store where the younger Cambodian boys gather. The former star is exposed as a gambler who drives his family business into debt but not before the younger boys enlist him as coach in their triumphant badminton competitions. There is a jocular warmth to all the stories along with the love and respect deeply enshrined in their culture. Many a similar amusing refrain is heard in all households, "Ba, you gotta stop using the genocide to win arguments." The only story in darker, more somber mode is the last in the one, "Generational Differences," It's a clever social commentary on the mass shooting based on the 1989 mass shooting in an elementary school with a major Cambodian student body. In the tragic aftermath, Michael Jackson came to the school to provide support while receiving a major public relations promotion. Throughout, So's deft writing provides a keen perspective from within the lives of first generation Cambodians in CA looking outside their communities while deeply entrenched in their's. The Cambodian mother and teacher who worked at the school during the massacre explains her feelings, "Through my frustration, my clenched teeth, I didn't have the words to say those years were never the sole explanation of anything; that I've always considered the genocide to be the source of all our problems and none of them."