Another campus story, this time set in the slightly panicky aimlessness of post-graduation. The narrator of ‘Human Development’, from the only collection published by the late Anthony Veasna So, and also named Anthony, is a Stanford graduate who has grown jaded of being the only Cambodian American in any room, and of the expectation from others that he represent a country, a culture, a whole people. On a hookup app he meets Ben, his equal and opposite, a Cambodian American who’s as extroverted, cheerful and driven as Anthony is gloomy and rudderless. Where he sees his minority background as an impediment, Ben – a developer with an idea for an app based around identity politics that is both silly and chilling – thinks the pair and their associate Vinny can use it as a status symbol, even monetise it. There’s so much here about academia (Anthony teaches a humanities course that gives the story its title and, for all his pessimism, genuinely feels Moby-Dick can be a guide to life for “rich kids with fake Adderall prescriptions”), fitting in and standing out, queer identities, and the way that having all of life available to you – the endless scrolling screen of the hookup app – can be as inhibiting and trapping as being starved of opportunity. I rather enjoy a discursive, character-driven story where plot isn’t a priority, and ‘Human Development’ unfurls easily, casually, conversationally, painfully, in a way that always leaves me wanting more.
Collected in Afterparties, Atlantic, 2021
A Personal Anthology 