BOTM November 2024 How to Pronounce Knife

[Celia]

This book is about Laotian Heritage and takes place in Canada.

"How to Pronounce Knife" takes place primarily in Ontario, Canada, as the stories focus on the experiences of Laotian immigrant families settling in Canada, and the author, Souvankham Thammavongsa, is herself a Laotian Canadian.

Key points about the setting:
Focus on Laotian Canadian experience:
The stories primarily depict the challenges faced by Laotian immigrants navigating life in Canada, often highlighting cultural clashes and language barriers.
Author's background:
Thammavongsa is a Canadian author who immigrated to Canada from a Lao refugee camp.
No specific province mentioned:
While the stories don't explicitly state a specific province, the details and context point towards Ontario as the most likely setting.

[GailW]

I have finished this and had no idea what to rate it. If I base it on the first story, the books name, it's a 5. If I rate each story individually and then average them, it's 3.4. There were too many I did not like (I gave 2's to 4 of them). My other 5's were "Chick-A-Chee!" and "Picking Worms". So, 3.5 rounded to a 4, because kudos to the author for writing a book that made me emotional.

I had to do research on her background for another world reading group I'm in off-goodreads. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and was raised and educated in Toronto, Canada. In the other challenge there was a question as to "where" she was born (the response to which is the basis for the challenge) and the only good answer seems to be “it depends”. This one is a very sticky question. The US claims that a child born in-country is a US citizen (although I've become quite cynical and firmly believe that all depends on who is president.) It Is NOT automatic in the EU. There is even a term for it - “stateless”. If the parents are stateless (not a resident of the country in which they are currently residing), so is the child until they are approved for permanent residency. Because she was not born in Laos, there is no birth certificate. Because she was born in a refugee camp and her parents lived in a refugee camp, Thailand did not provide a birth certificate because her parents were not permanent residents. Thailand in particular does not allow persons in refugee camps to live outside the camp or access public services The refugees must rely on humanitarian aid for even basic needs. (That was as of Jan 2024.)

This info, in my mind, gives a whole new meaning to many of her stories. Now I give it a solid 4.

[Gail]

I overall enjoyed this read. I thought she was able to really capture the strangely unsettled emotions that come from never really belonging where one lives. Like Gail W. I thought these three were the best; "Chick a Chee", "Picking Worms" and the first story "How to Pronounce Knife". I didn't mind the others either although "A Far Distant Thing" seemed to be thrown in just to add pages.
It is interesting that Thammavongsa doesn't really have a country of origin as Gail W. mentioned. She is Laotian in that her parents were from there but she herself was not born there or in Canada where she now lives. No wonder her work is charged with the peculiar tension of almost being at home, with a loving father, grandfather or mother but not really being grounded in having a home.

[NancyJ]

I am really enjoying this discussion. I read this book in February for the PBT monthly tag “authors of color.” I think it was my favorite tag all year. I gave it 3.5 stars. Here is the review I wrote at the time. Unfortunately I don’t remember very much now.


February 29
This is a collection of short stories primarily about Laos immigrants in the US. I read about half of them early in the month (before my loan expired) and the rest this week. Many were forgotten by the time I got the book back, and a few improved while rereading. Some of the stories were humorous, and many had a sad or bittersweet quality to them.

My favorite story was about the man who works for his sister's nail salon. It felt very true to life, and reminded me of two salons I've visited. My current salon is owned by a very outgoing Vietnamese woman and I think I've met her whole family by now. The title story will probably stick with me the longest because it's one I discussed with a teacher at a party. The story about a wife who is was an obsessive Randy Travis struck me as funny the first time I read it, but tragic and moving the second time I read it. (That's the thing about audio short stories, if you miss just a couple lines (by coughing or listening to someone talk), you can miss something very important.* Two of the stories had a strong "ick" factor for me. It feels disloyal to my gender and age group, but I didn't like the story about the relationship between a young man and an elderly woman.

* The audio production for short stories also makes a difference. If they don't allow a pause between stories, the ending can feel too abrupt. Or the stories will seem to run together, creating confusion. It's also more effective when short stories are each narrated by different performers, and using the correct gender. It's annoying to listen to a grown man read a story without changing any inflections to let the reader know that the protagonist is a little girl. This is one reason I'll likely round down my rating of this book.

[K]

I really liked this book, also. The writing was just so "straight from the heart", whether it was funny ("Chick a Chee"!) or serious/sad with so much loneliness and being the outsiders and underdogs. Thanks for suggesting this one,

[Gail]

NancyJ, thanks for sharing your review. Like you I struggled a bit with the "ick" (lovely word) of the older woman and the young man. In particular I thought that she was demeaning herself and it made me uncomfortable. However, I came to a point that she seemed realistic and okay with it, so why shouldn't I be, but the ending rather pulled that into question.

[Amanda]

I gave it 5 stars, there was such a heartbreak and little victories of real life quality to it I loved, and the specific lens of Lao immigrants was really interesting to me.

Like others, 'how to pronounce knife', 'chick a chee', and 'picking worms' were the standouts to me (especially in how 'picking worms' creates a microcosm story about larger systemic racism in labor).

I also wanted to read this one because its a winner of the Giller award (its like the Canadian Booker or Pulitzer) and I'm trying to read those. I read all of the nominees for this year and last year, so for anyone who enjoyed this one I would recommend The Islands: Stories (2023), and Peacocks of Instagram: Stories (2024). They are both short story collections of immigrant experiences as well (the Caribbean and India respectively).