The only love Red knew was that simple, uncomplicated, lonely love one feels for oneself in the quiet moments of the day. The front-office workers are all marked by one distinguishing feature: thin noses that “point upwards.” Red dreams of one day getting a nose job and being noticed and promoted by her boss, Tommy-who often has affairs with female employees from the front office-but deep down she feels she’s ugly and unlovable. There’s a clear divide at the plant between those who work in the back and those who work in the front. “Paris,” for instance, tells the story of Red, a woman who works on the line at a chicken processing plant. This exploration of how people navigate life on the margins is what weaves each story in the collection together, particularly as Thammavongsa explicitly considers power dynamics.Ī handful of stories set in the workplace quietly highlight the insidious, crushing nature of hierarchies based on race, class, and gender.
She wants to tell her father that some letters, even though they are there, we do not say them, but she decides now is not the time to say such a thing. What else she would have to find out for herself. As she watches her father eat his dinner, she thinks of what else he doesn’t know.
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