A Review of Sangu Mandanna’s A Spark of White Fire (Sky Pony, 2018)

[uttararangarajan]

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Uttara Rangarajan  

I’ve been meaning to review Sangu Mandanna’s A Spark of White Fire (Sky Pony, 2018) for some time, as I’ve read it quite awhile ago, but haven’t sat down to write it out. In any case, this one is really an action-packed, fun installment loosely based on both Indian epics and Greek mythology. The marketing description can be found here: “In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back. Raised alone and far away from her home on Kali, Esmae longs to return to her family. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable, sentient warship Titania to a warrior that can win his competition, she sees her way home: she’ll enter the competition, reveal her true identity to the world, and help her famous brother win back the crown of Kali. It’s a great plan. Until it falls apart. Inspired by the Mahabharata and other ancient Indian stories, A Spark of White Fire is a lush, sweeping space opera about family, curses, and the endless battle between jealousy and love.”

 

What is really unique about this version of revising myths and epics is that that it’s primarily constituted through a kind of science fiction environment. Indeed, the sentient warship is one of the most intriguing elements of this plot. Of course, there’s much political intrigue in this narrative, as Esmae’s return pushes her to consider where her loyalties might lie. With a ton of action sequences and the complications of political gamesmanship, Mandanna’s first installment is well worth a read, especially for YA fans.

 

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A Review of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Knopf, 2022)

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Uttara Rangarajan  

Readers of our review will know I’m a huge fan of Gabrielle Zevin. I’ve read close to everything Zevin has published, so you know I was eventually going to get to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Knopf, 2022). This book has been getting a huge buzz. I’ve just heard people talking about it, heard about people reading it, and heard people raving about it. I can see why though, the signature aspects of Zevin’s writing are all there, especially her masterful deployment of sentimentalism. The marketing description gives us this information: “On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.”

 

These descriptions are always interesting because they tend to have to condense the plot and reduce the complexity of the character-system. In this case, the novel really has at least two other major characters. The first is Marx, Sam’s college roommate, who will eventually engage in a romance with Sadie, which will complicate the working relationships amongst all three characters. The other major character is Dov, the college professor, who Sadie has an affair with, and who ultimately helps push Sadie into her gaming development career.

 

What I adored about this text is that you know Zevin is a real fan of gaming, and it brought out that nostalgic streak in me. I used to game quite a bit, but as life got busy, I left all PC, handheld, and console gaming behind. I’m not surprised that Zevin ultimately focuses on the MMORPG, which is short for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game. These virtual realities were really formative for me as an escape, and Zevin really offers us a robust engagement with why the MMORPG is such an attractive alternative world. At the core of this novel, we see that the chemistry between Sadie and Sam is unique: it allows them to create games that truly become embraced by consumers. The problem is of course the various personal dynamics that continue to create friction and fissures between them, and thus sometimes get in the way of their gaming creation. The depth of their friendship, which always but never veers into romance, makes this novel particularly compelling.

 

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A Review of Nidhi Chanani’s Jukebox (First Second, 2021)

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Uttara Rangarajan 

I always teach Nidhi Chanani’s Pashmina in my course on graphic narrative, but I haven’t gotten around to reviewing Chanani’s graphic novel Jukebox (First Second, 2021), so I am here to recify this issue. Let’s go to the marketing description to get us situated, as per usual: “Grab some coins for the jukebox, and get ready for a colorful, time-traveling, musical tale about family and courage. A mysterious jukebox, old vinyl records, and cryptic notes on music history, are Shaheen's only clues to her father's abrupt disappearance. She looks to her cousin, Tannaz, who seems just as perplexed, before they both turn to the jukebox which starts…glowing? Suddenly, the girls are pulled from their era and transported to another time! Keyed to the music on the record, the jukebox sends them through decade after decade of music history, from political marches, to landmark concerts. But can they find Shaheen’s dad before the music stops? This time-bending magical mystery tour invites readers to take the ride of their lives for a coming-of-age adventure.”

 

This story is actually a little bit scary in terms of its premise because Shaheen’s dad is gone, and they’re not sure where he is. When they go to the record shop that he often frequents, they come upon a magical jukebox, which takes them to the time and place related to the record that is playing. With references to civil rights, Bessie Smith, James Brown, and time travel, you can’t really beat this particular adventure type graphic novel. There are some obvious resonances between this work and Pashmina, as both titles reference magical objects who are able to transport the individual who is in proximity to it in some way. Whereas Pashmina focuses very much on a South Asian American family and transnational dynamics, Jukebox is more interested in an intersectional perspective, bringing together Asian American, African American, white, and queer perspectives into a single narrative. A lovely author’s note at the work’s conclusion also clarifies the autobiographical stakes for this work. Finally, Chanani’s signature buoying visuals really bring this story to life. Another winner from Chanani.

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A Review of Truong Tran’s Book of the Other (Kaya, 2021)

[uttararangarajan]

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Uttara Rangarajan 

This one is going to be a lightning review of Truong Tran’s Book of the Other (Kaya, 2021). I read it quite a while back and merely wanted to take the time to discuss the shift and evolution of Tran’s poetry, especially since I covered some of Tran’s collections long ago. The marketing description over at Kaya provides us with this description: “A furious, multiform examination of the devastation wrought by anti-Asian racism in America Truong Tran’s provocative collection of poetry, prose and essays is a stunning rebuttal to the idea of anti-Asian racism as a victimless crime. Written with a compulsion for lucidity that transforms outrage into clarity, Book of the Other resists the luxury of metaphor to write about the experience of being shut out, shut down and othered as a queer, working-class teacher, immigrant and refugee. What emerges from Tran’s sharp-eyed experiments in language and form is an achingly beautiful acknowledgment of the estrangement from self forced upon those seduced by the promise of color-blind acceptance and the rigorous, step by step act of recollection needed to find one's way home to oneself.”

 

While Book of the Other retains Tran’s signature use of prose poetry blocks, what is decidedly different is the more squarely direct and confrontational tone his lyric speaker employs. Whereas prior poetry collections might have encrypted more of the content in metaphor and circularity, you absolutely understand that there is anger here that emerges from the center of an individual on the margins: an ethnoracial minority, a queer subject, someone on the outside of the academy. Perhaps, what is most reparative for me, given my own professional history, is how courageously Tran calls out institutional racism and institutional elitism, the kind that you somehow still see today, despite all of these proclamations that every higher-level university or college is diverse. A thrilling work of social critique, and in my opinion, Tran’s best work.

 

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