Nina McConigley

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

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

Jemima Scott

It is an acknowledged truth that to be a girl is to be extracted. Girls, we are taken.

Lindsay

I’m not sure if that’s how it works. I’m not sure you can ever cancel out someone who has taken from you by taking more from someone else.

Does it bother me that you want to hear the story this way? Yes. Does it make me angry that you need all of these specific details to feel like you’re reading a proper brown- person story? Yes.

This is what being a girl is like. Holding yourself in a specific position, only moving when someone tells you to.

Okay, what about yoga? That’s how you think of our bodies, right? Twisted and pliant. When people ask me if I do yoga, when they look to me in a class, I move to child’s pose. Lying on the ground. Head bent. Knees bent. I’m not a threat. 

“You’re not very flexible,” teachers say. 

And I think, I have bent so much in my life, I can’t move anymore. I am so accommodating I can barely breathe. 

But now I rise into mountain pose, facing you. Now I’m ready to impose, to tell you what happened.

But were we really sinners if all we wanted was to be safe?

The tree girl must be treated gently; you’re only supposed to pick the flowers, nothing more. 

But someone always wants more. Someone always takes too much.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder quotes

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