San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Anthony Veasna So — Bay Area writer on verge of stardom
Anthony Veasna So was a fiery queer Cambodian American writer who was on the verge of stardom, already receiving critical acclaim for his highly anticipated debut story collection, “Afterparties.”
But his literary career was cut short. So died Tuesday, his publisher, Ecco, announced Thursday. He was 28. No details were immediately provided about the cause of death.
A native of Stockton who had settled in San Francisco, So once described himself as a “queer boy, a KhmerAmerican son of former refugees, a failed computer scientist, a grotesque parody of the model minority, and a graduate of Stanford University.”
Indeed, So — known to his friends as “Ant” — “was a queer Khmer man from Stockton who loved being from the same place as Maxine Hong Kingston, a writer of his lineage,” said Sunisa Manning, an East Bay author who met So in January at a Tin House writers workshop.
“He busted through barriers, getting published pretty much everywhere, like the New Yorker, Granta, n+ 1 and Zyzzyva,” she told The Chronicle. “Ant’s hustle, drive, and ambition had the unapologetic swagger of someone with deep community.”
In “Afterparties,” scheduled to be published in August, he celebrated his sexual and cultural identity, transcending the tragedies his family endured in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
“‘ Afterparties’ was one of the first books I acquired for Ecco, and everything about Anthony’s exuberant writing felt new to me — its blazing wit, crackling energy, deep empathy,” So’s editor, Helen Atsma, tweeted Thursday.
Rob McQuilkin, So’s agent, described the writer as “a furnace of an intellect and a wit, double distilling everything he took from his community, from his life, from his sexuality into something that would burn you as you read it but leave you in a state of wonder and hardearned joy.”
Publishers Weekly reported this year that So had agreed to a twobook, sixfigure deal with Ecco, which prevailed over several other interested publishers. George Saunders, Bryan Washington and Mary Karr are among those who have praised him.
“Anthony was bigger than life. He was always destined to be great,” said Samantha Lamb, So’s sister. “He strived to be the best partner, son, nephew, brother, cousin, and friend. As my brother, he always let me shine when we were at home. ... I want Anthony to know that we are so unbelievably proud of him.
Only 1 in a million people could have accomplished what he did in 28 years.”
The story “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts,” which ran in the New Yorker in February, is set during a late summer night in a familyrun business where the neighborhood has been devastated by the financial crisis of 200809. The store is not named for an actual person; the owner, a Cambodian immigrant named Sothy, thought an American name would bring in more customers. Sothy works alongside her two daughters, all of them coping with the lack of business and the knowledge that Sothy’s former husband now has a second family.
“Even with the recession wiping out almost every downtown business, and driving away their nighttime customers, save for the odd wornout worker from the nearby hospital, consider these summer nights, endless under the fluorescent lights, the family’s last pillars of support,” So wrote. “Imagine Chuck’s Donuts a mausoleum to their glorious past.”
Anthony Veasna So was born Feb. 20, 1992, to Sienghay and Ravy So, Cambodian refugees who own an auto shop in Stockton. He moved to the Peninsula in 2010 to attend Stanford University, where he majored in English and art practice.
He met Alex Torres, also an English major at Stanford, through a dating app in 2014. The couple took a few of the same classes and soon moved in together, living in Palo Alto until relocating to San Francisco in 2016.
So also did a stint in New York, from 2017 to 2019, to earn his master’s in fiction writing at Syracuse University.
Torres and So became registered domestic partners on Sept. 28, after both earning their graduate degrees in the spring.
Manning said the couple often referred to themselves as “Ant and Al.”
“Anthony was one of the most loving people I had ever met in my life,” Torres said, adding that So made his first meal every day. “He was funny, silly, frivolous, driven, passionate and intense. He cared about me more than anybody has ever cared about me before. Anthony made me see something in myself that I didn’t know existed. Anthony showed me how to use my imagination and to enjoy how to be alive.”
So taught at several schools, including Syracuse and Colgate University as well as the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants in Oakland.
Monica Sok, an Oakland poet and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, said she and So bonded over their shared passion of writing and their Cambodian roots. Both mourned the loss of Kimarlee Nguyen, a Cambodian American writer in New York who died of COVID19 in April.
“She was one of his contemporaries, and while they never met each other, they must know each other now in the afterlife,” Sok said. “It’s terrible that we lost two Cambodian writing stars this year. It’s just too much.”
So is survived by his partner, Alex Torres; his parents, Sienghay and Ravy So; his sister and brotherinlaw, Samantha and Zachary Lamb, and his nephew, Oliver Lamb.
According to Ecco, So had also been working on a novel, “about three Khmer American cousins — a pansexual rapper, a comedian philosopher, and a hotheaded illustrator,” titled “Straight Through Cambotown.”
Former Stanford Professor Claire Jarvis began a GoFundMe campaign to assist Torres with arrangements, while Sok is starting another GoFundMe campaign to create scholarships in So’s name “so that his legacy is never forgotten.”
His family began hosting a private sevenday Cambodian funerary ritual in Stockton on Friday. A virtual public funeral via Zoom is scheduled for 11 a. m. Dec. 20, with details to be shared on social media.