The Past

Throughout the entirety of his collection, the author explores the entanglement between self-discovery and the individual's relationship with his familial, ancestral, and cultural past. All of the characters in So's short stories are Cambodian children, adolescents, or young adults struggling to reconcile the truth of their parents' trauma with their current lives in America. Though the main characters in Afterparties are all second generation, their understandings of themselves are deeply impacted by their parents' experiences during the Cambodian genocide. The author uses his distinct narrative voices and structures to consider the possibilities of making peace with this trauma and creating something new beyond it. In "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts," Tevy's observations of the mysterious customer make her wonder, "What does it mean to be Khmer, anyway? How does one know what is and is not Khmer?" (9). Though these questions originate from Tevy's distinct consciousness...