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Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by 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.
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.
"This thrilling bildungsroman is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Though
framed like a funny, ferociously allusive
grown-up version of a YA whodunit,
McConigley's debut novel carries deeper,
knottier mysteries than the curious crime
at its center.
Wittily observant and achingly tender." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Refreshing…In addition to describing growing up Indian American in 1980s Wyoming, McConigley's debut novel artfully shares universalizing details of Georgie's and Agatha's everyday lives, like cheerleading and watching TV…McConigley's impactful work will linger. Interspersed with details of the U.S. in the late 20th century, this is a book for all collections." —Library Journal (starred review)
"I have been waiting for Nina McConigley's debut novel for years and it's even better than I could have imagined. How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder takes all the expected stories about growing up Indian American, slices them open with razor-sharp wit, and turns them inside out. A moving portrayal of sisterhood and a much-needed examination of how power is abused—over girls, over countries, over cultures—and the possibilities, and costs, of reclaiming that power." —Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
"A fierce and marvelous book with an utterly unique, brightly burning lifeforce." —Maggie Shipstead, author of Great Circle
This information about How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nina McConigley is the author of the story collection Cowboys and East Indians, which was the winner of the PEN Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. She has received grants and fellowships from the NEA, the Radcliffe Institute, Bread Loaf, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She was a recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council's Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award and a finalist for a National Magazine Award for her columns in High Country News. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Orion, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, among other outlets. Born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming, she now lives in Colorado.
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