​Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So is a collection of short stories focused on the lives of Cambodian Americans, their interlinking relationships, and the generational trauma of the Khmer Rouge genocide. ‘Three Woman of Chuck’s Donuts’ is about a family who owns a donut shop while a mysterious man comes to order a single fritter every night without eating it. ‘Superking Son Scores Again’ is about a badminton coach who owns a store and can’t stop reliving his glory days. ‘Maly, Maly, Maly’ is about two cousins who hang out and work at a bootleg DVD store, where they get high, watch porn together, and then go to a ceremony for the rebirth of their aunt. ‘The Shop’ is about a father who owns a mechanic shop, but the business begins to fail after one of the cars is stolen. Other stories I enjoyed were ‘The Monks’ and ‘Human Development’.
 
The stories feature interlinking characters, though fairly loose in the specific plots between them. Thus, they create a tapestry of what it means to be Khmer, gay, and sometimes aimless. It’s a tender and powerful collection.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​Poetry December 2023 is a collection of poems and a feature of Frank Marshall Davis. It’s a solid issue with Diane Seuss with ‘Cowpunk’, Okwudili Nebeolisa with ‘Innocence’, and Frank Michell Davis with ‘Giles Johnson, Ph.D.’. I especially enjoyed the interview, discussion, and short essay by Davis’s daughter. It was an in-depth look on how Davis’s work was heavily influenced by living in Chicago, the way people at the time saw his work as too political and bordering on propaganda, and how he viewed his work.
 
Final Rating: 3.5/5

​Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe is a surreal novel about a man who works at a products company and one day finds radish sprouts growing on his shins. He decides to go to the doctor where he is prescribed a bath in a sulfur lake. Then the bed he is on begins to move on its own volition, which takes him along the street, where he gets ticketed by a police officer for parking on the road in the bed, and is sent into a cave where he is nearly killed by an oncoming train. He then is taken on a boat by the bed along an underground sewage river where his IV bag turns into a reproductive organ of a squid and if it is smashed into another reproductive organ, it creates a bomb. Other adventures include the man going to an underworld tourist attraction where child-demons sing songs to visitors, meeting his mother in the underworld where she has no eyes, a nurse who tries to collect as much blood as she can from unwilling people, killing another hospital patient with nine other people because he was making too many noises, and finally going to a circus where the child-demons pack him in a box where he dies.
 
The novel takes many unexpected turns, and as with the narrator, it feels as though we are the patient strapped to the bed and are brought along to wherever it takes us. There are many moments of surprise, and I particularly enjoyed the way the man recalls the author who wrote about the squid bombs. It’s a weird and fun novel that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously.
 
Final Rating: 4/5

​Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima is a novel about a copywriter, Hanio, who tries to kill himself, but fails. He then decides to put his life up for sale in the newspaper, which kickstarts a collection of desperate people who want to use him. The first man wants him to sleep with his young wife, get caught, and killed. Another woman wants him to test a poison concocted from beetles for a Western buyer. A boy wants him to sleep with his mother, who turns out to be a vampire, while the mother intends to kill both her and Hanio in a fire. Two spies enlist his help in testing out poisonous carrots and deciphering letters. And finally, a woman asks for him to live with her and pay his rent, while she intends to kill him with her. Many of these instances are connected through the Asia Confidential Service (ACS), who believes him to be an undercover cop trying to unravel their international murders. In the end, the ACS captures him, but he outwits them with a stopwatch in a box which he says is a bomb. However, when Hanio goes to the police to report the ACS, he is brushed off as he is seen as crazy and homeless.
 
The novel shows Hanio wanting to die, but through the course of its narration, he seems to stumble out of harms way. He cannot kill himself, the women that ask for his services intend to commit suicide with him, but he always inexplicably slips away from danger. This is what drives the story forward: Hanio’s desire for death and Mishima denying his death. The novel, however, depicts women in an oddly misogynistic light with its descriptions of their bodies, their singular desires to have sex with Hanio, and their melodramatic suicides either in the face of a gun, a fire, or poison. All that being said, it’s a fast-paced and tense novel throughout, and I found Hanio’s situation to be both surreal and ironic.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5

​Japanese Fairy Tales edited by Philip Smith is a collection of five fairy tales from Japan during their years of isolation. Many of the stories involve older married couples wanting children, and fighting demons. I’m most familiar with Momotaro, but thought the Tongue-cut Sparrow was an interesting read as well. As with most of the stories, there are morals imbued within them, and because they are meant for a young audience, provide templates for children to act with their parents or loved ones.
 
Final Rating: 4/5

​A Hundred Lovers by Richie Hofmann is a collection of poems focusing on the erotic, gay, and tender moments the speaker remembers with his past lovers. I particularly enjoyed ‘One Another’, with its lines, “How easily the earth closes / its cavities.” I also enjoyed ‘Spring Wedding’, ‘Mummified Bird’, ‘Opulence’, and ‘French Novel’. ‘Spring Wedding’ fractures its stanzas between the erotic (the first half) and the mundane with “We will have children. / We will buy another house.” The imagery is stark and the collection isn’t afraid to take on themes of sexuality with precision.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5

​Sky Ladders by Ethan Chua is a chapbook centering on the Chinese-Filipino experience and the effect of the Atlanta shooting that killed Asian Americans. The poems feel raw, at times in their untranslated forms, and in their translated forms. I found the poem, ‘The Bardo’, with its last few lines to be striking, “(48)   how she always picked up when I called, and that day she did / (49)   & the sound was forever”. I also found the poem, ‘Arrivals’, with its initial lines to be intense and powerful.
 
Final Rating: 4/5

​The Kenyon Review Summer 2023 is a collection of poetry, short stories, and essays focusing on Women’s Health and ecopoetics. I was particularly drawn to the essay, ‘Shelter in Place’, by Sydney Tammarine, the essay, ‘How to Tell a True Love Story’, by Leslie Jill Patterson, the story, ‘Robber’s Lake’, by Emma Binder, the story, ‘Burnings’, by Kabi Hartman, and the poem, ‘Comfort Food’, by Terrance Hayes. In ‘Robber’s Lake’, a boy fashions himself a diving rig to go to the bottom of a lake and bring back his mother’s painting which he thinks will bring her out of her depression. He enlists the help of an older gay man and as the boy searches, his contraption fills with water and the man has to jump in to save him. This collection was strong in its discussion of the environment and how women are vital for a healthy world.
 
Final Rating: 4/5