{"id":46838,"date":"2020-05-14T10:58:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T14:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=46838"},"modified":"2020-05-14T11:00:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T15:00:04","slug":"five-more-to-go-corinne-mannings-we-had-no-rules-in-the-booklist-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/five-more-to-go-corinne-mannings-we-had-no-rules-in-the-booklist-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Five More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We Had No Rules<\/strong><\/a> by Corinne Manning<\/p>\n

Corinne Manning\u2019s author statement couldn\u2019t be clearer: \u201cI had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence \u2018Oh, f*ck it. I\u2019m writing lesbian fiction.\u2019\u201d That declaration became \u201cGay Tale,\u201d one of 11 stories in her debut collection about the myriad ways of falling into, making, betraying, and celebrating love. Two stories, \u201cWe Had No Rules\u201d and \u201cThe Wallaby,\u201d share the same narrator, a 16-year-old who has run away to live with her sister in New York City, in the former; in the latter, set decades later, she faces the loss of that now fatally ill sibling. Three family members affected by divorce each get a story, moving backwards in time: the cuckolded husband attending his ex-wife\u2019s funeral in \u201cThe Appropriate Weight\u201c; the gay wife concerned about their distracted adult daughter in \u201cSeeing in the Dark,\u201d and the daughter as a 16-year-old discovering romance in \u201cThe Only Pain You Feel.\u201d Wistful, funny, angry, bitter, raw \u2013 Manning\u2019s writing both shocks and enthralls.<\/p>\n

Short stories done well feel like a literary gift \u2013 endless variations of form and content, always new surprises and discoveries. Below you\u2019ll find five uniquely voiced collections, all published within the last year-ish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Apsara Engine<\/strong><\/a> by Bishakh Som<\/p>\n

A woman goes out for her regular evening walk on the beach, contemplating her relationship with her husband, until she sees a mermaid washed up on the shore. And here text and graphics suddenly diverge: the words reveal a recent affair, while the frames depict the mermaid dragging the woman down into dark waters. That mesmerizing juxtaposition in \u201cCome Back to Me\u201d inaugurates Som\u2019s extraordinary debut, signaling an exceptional graphic achievement. Richly hued, gorgeously lettered, and often exquisitely detailed, Som\u2019s work, the writing as well the art, presents a brave new world of diverse women \u2013 talking, dancing, dreaming, plotting \u2013 living among friends, lovers, and chimerical creatures, in familiar cities and faraway landscapes, balancing the expectantly mundane with the utterly fantastical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Exhalation<\/strong><\/a> by Ted Chiang<\/p>\n

Chiang, whose 1998 novella \u201cStory of Your Life\u201d became the Oscar-nominated film Arrival<\/em>, returns with another intriguing collection featuring seven previously published stories plus two new ones. If you choose to listen, Edoardo Ballerini voices four stories, Dominic Hoffman two, and Amy Landon three, but most notable is Chiang himself, who appends each story with a revealing provenance. Chiang\u2019s regular aural interjections underscore the taut thread connecting his future worlds: the human relationship \u2013 repercussions, consequences, rewards \u2013 with sci-fi inventions, including (especially) all manner of artificial intelligence. Hollywood is already developing \u201cThe Merchant and the Alchemist\u2019s Gate\u201d and \u201cThe Lifecycle of Software Objects,\u201d so hearing the stories here first is a must for (over)active imaginations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Good Citizens Need Not Fear<\/strong><\/a> by Maria Reva<\/p>\n

Ivansk Street, Number 1933, in Kirovka, Ukraine, seems be an exact address, but the town council\u2019s clerk insists \u201cthat building does not exist.\u201d Constructed last year, \u201csomeone seemed to have forgotten to connect [the building] to the district furnace,\u201d but plenty of people already live there. These inhabitants comprise the memorable cast \u2013 inspired, remarkably, by her own family\u2019s experiences \u2013 in Ukraine-born Reva\u2019s skillful, interconnected collection, which proves to be a stupendous amalgam of pathos, black comedy, and preposterous, post-USSR surreality. Nine entangled, intertwined, intricate stories later, Reva\u2019s fictional characters living in a nonexistent building might seem absurd, but her remarkably convincing narratives assure plenty of thoughtful entertainment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"How To Pronounce Knife<\/strong><\/a> by Souvankham Thammavongsa<\/p>\n

In her under 200-page fiction debut, Canadian poet Thammavongsa showcases 14 spectacular stories. Born to Lao parents in a Thai refugee camp and raised and educated in Toronto, Thammavongsa parses her own culturally amalgamated heritage through most of her narratives, some previously published. The collection opens with the Commonwealth Short Story Prize short-listed title story, a poignant, eyes-wide-open exploration of a young girl\u2019s embarrassed realization of how little her immigrant father seems to know. Other lingering standouts are many, including the 2019 O. Henry-prized \u201cSlingshot,\u201d which introduces a did-that-really-happen relationship between a 70-year-old woman and her 32-year-old neighbor. Cosmopolitan aficionados of pristine short fiction will want to read in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction<\/strong><\/a> edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park<\/p>\n

Science fiction in Korea is relatively new, initially imported from the West via early-twentieth-century translations. By the late-1950s, the rapid modernization of postwar South Korea proffered considerable fodder for sf-writer wannabes. Over the following decades, Korea\u2019s ongoing political, socioeconomic, and technological reinventions created fertile conditions to nurture a distinctly homegrown sf community of writers and readers. Tenaciously indie Kaya Press launches its Magpie Series<\/a> with this collection of 13 diverse sf stories originally published in the 1960s to the 2010s. Editors Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park have assembled a village of translators and academics to provide additional, insightful context for each story and author, bestowing upon Anglophone readers a multilayered introduction \u2013 presented in a most unique layout \u2013 to contemporary Korean science fiction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: “Five More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s WE HAD NO RULES,” The Booklist Reader<\/em>, May 12, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning\u2019s author statement couldn\u2019t be clearer: \u201cI had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence \u2018Oh, f*ck it. I\u2019m writing lesbian fiction.\u2019\u201d That declaration became \u201cGay Tale,\u201d one of 11…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,274,21,23,6,73,53,37,4420,7243,6535,18,66,9013,9014],"tags":[89,9036,9037,6608,6668,7235,8997,8549,9069,8920,50,9016,8352,9068,8921,35,8319,8548,8998],"class_list":["post-46838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-canadian","category-chinese-american","category-european","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-indian-american","category-korean","category-laotian-american","category-lists","category-repost","category-south-asian-american","category-translation","category-ukrainian","category-ukrainian-american","tag-anthology-collection","tag-apsara-engine","tag-bishakh-som","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-booklist-reader","tag-corinne-manning","tag-exhalation","tag-goof-citizens-need-not-fear","tag-how-to-pronounce-knife","tag-lgbtqia","tag-maria-reva","tag-readymade-bodhisattva","tag-san-joon-park","tag-souvankham-thammavongsa","tag-speculative-fantasy","tag-sunyoung-park","tag-ted-chiang","tag-we-had-no-rules"],"yoast_head":"\nFive More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/five-more-to-go-corinne-mannings-we-had-no-rules-in-the-booklist-leader\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning\u2019s author statement couldn\u2019t be clearer: \u201cI had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence \u2018Oh, f*ck it. I\u2019m writing lesbian fiction.\u2019\u201d That declaration became \u201cGay Tale,\u201d one of 11...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/five-more-to-go-corinne-mannings-we-had-no-rules-in-the-booklist-leader\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-05-14T14:58:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-14T15:00:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/05\/Five-More-to-Go-Corinne-Manning\u2019s-WE-HAD-NO-RULES.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Five More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/five-more-to-go-corinne-mannings-we-had-no-rules-in-the-booklist-leader\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Five More to Go: Corinne Manning\u2019s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader] - BookDragon","og_description":"We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning\u2019s author statement couldn\u2019t be clearer: \u201cI had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence \u2018Oh, f*ck it. 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