How to Pronounce Knife: Stories
SynopsisPlot
A failed boxer painting nails at the local salon. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A housewife learning English from daytime soap operas. A mother teaching her daughter the art of worm harvesting. In her stunning debut story collection, O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa focuses on characters struggling to make a living, illuminating their hopes, disappointments, love affairs, acts of defiance, and above all their pursuit of a place to belong. In spare, intimate prose charged with emotional power and a sly wit, she paints an indelible portrait of watchful children, wounded men, and restless women caught between cultures, languages, and values. As one of Thammavongsa's characters says, "All we wanted was to live." And in these stories, they do—brightly, ferociously, unforgettably.
Story
About this book
How to Pronounce Knife is a debut short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa, a writer of Lao background. The stories follow immigrants and refugees living in an unnamed city, working jobs that range from plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant to painting nails at a local salon. A former boxer finds unexpected tenderness through his new trade. A housewife picks up English by watching soap operas on daytime television. A mother leads her daughter out at night to gather earthworms. Each story is built around the daily texture of ordinary labor and small decisions.
Thammavongsa writes about people caught between languages, cultures, and generations. Children watch their parents navigate unfamiliar systems. Adults carry old knowledge into new settings where it may or may not serve them. The collection is interested in what happens when belonging is not a given but something that must be assembled from limited materials, shift by shift, word by word.
The prose style is spare and closely observed, with a dry humor running through even the most difficult scenes. Thammavongsa received an O. Henry Award for her short fiction, and this collection marks her first published book of stories.
