Nina McConigley

Cowboys and East Indians

'Takes all the expected stories about growing up Indian American, slices them open with razor-sharp wit, and turns them inside out' CELESTE NG, author of OUR MISSING HEARTS 'Nina McConigley is a true original . . . Heart-mending and heart-breaking - as only the truth can be' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE Georgie and Agatha Krishna killed their uncle, and they blame the British. Summer, 1986. Tween sisters Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin - newly arrived from India - into their house in rural Wyoming where they'll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it's time for their uncle to die. To understand why, you need to hear Georgie's story. It's one of violence hiding in their house and history, of her once-unshakeable bond with her sister, of being an Indian-American girl in the heart of the West. Her account is cheeky, unflinching and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom: pen pal letters, how-to guides, games of MASH and teen-magazine-style quizzes. And the tale she weaves is either: a) a vivid portrait of an extended family b) a moving story of sisterhood c) a playful ode to the 80s d) a murder mystery (of sorts) e) a ruthless meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence Or maybe it's really: f) all of the above.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

A bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel that begins with an uncle dead and his tween niece’s private confession to the reader—she and her sister killed him, and they blame the British. "I have been waiting for Nina McConigley's debut novel for years and it's even better than I could have imagined." —Celeste Ng “Spirited and witty, stylish and audacious...Its avid curiosity about the world, its alertness to history, and its enormously fun storytelling—with a twist at the end—held me in their spell.” —Megha Majumdar Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin—newly arrived from India—into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die. According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is: a) a vivid portrait of an extended family b) a moving story of sisterhood c) a playful ode to the 80s d) a murder mystery (of sorts) e) an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence Or maybe it’s really: f) all of the above.

A Novel

WINNER OF THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD AND THE HIGH PLAINS BOOK AWARD ● For readers of Jhumpa Lahiri and Maile Meloy, a collection of stories about Indian immigrants in the rural American West full of “such grace and understated power that you know you are in the presence of an incredible new voice in fiction” (Kevin Wilson). “We were the wrong kind of Indians living in Wyoming. There were Arapaho, Shoshone, even some Crow. And then there were us.” Richly textured, compassionate, and at times hilarious, Cowboys and East Indians traces a journey from India to Wyoming and back again, introducing us along the way to characters who seem not quite to fit the circumstances in which they find themselves, but who nevertheless search for belonging—through unexpected common ground with their human neighbors or the abiding, if isolating, openness of the vast landscape of the West. There is the woman newly arrived in Casper, asked by her husband’s cowboy co-worker to help him cross-dress in her saris. The foreign exchange student who succumbs to kleptomania. A young Indian-American woman reckoning with her life in Casper with her white father, following the death of her Indian mother. And the American woman traveling to Chennai in the hopes of scoring discount Accutane for her chronic cystic acne. Seamlessly moving from character to character with empathy and unexpected connection, the stories in Cowboys and East Indians show us the not-often-mentioned rural immigrant experience, communities in which identity is shaped not just by personal history, but by place, the very land on which they must build a home.

Nina McConigley

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