“Comedy and its epistemological relation to trauma theory” is the proposed dissertation topic of one of the characters in Anthony Veasna So’s new collection of essays and fiction, “Songs on Endless Repeat.” More precisely, the character — a gay Cambodian American languishing in a philosophy PhD program at Stanford — proposes writing about how both comedy and trauma “revel in the fragmentary, broken nature of reality.”
The statement could double as an oblique description of So’s own work. His debut collection, “Afterparties,” published after his death in 2020 from an accidental drug overdose, showcased his considerable talent for vivifying members of the Cambodian community in Stockton.
