The title of Souvankham Thammavongsa’s new novel, Pick a Color (Little, Brown, September 30), refers to the phrase recited daily by nail technicians across North America—many of them women from Asia who might love or hate their jobs but are often ignored by their clients. Thammavongsa, whose Laotian family emigrated from a refugee camp in Thailand to Canada when she was still a baby, has never worked at a salon. But she did spend a year learning how to box in order to better understand her protagonist, Ning, whose years in the ring influence her slightly aggressive solitude as a salon manager—not to mention her dry wit, pragmatism, and keen eye for detail. Although the author had already published four poetry books, it was her 2020 Giller Prize–winning story collection, How To Pronounce Knife, that brought her to the attention of U.S. readers. Pick a Color, which received a starred review from Kirkus, promises to multiply that attention. Thammavongsa, 47, recently spoke to Kirkus via Zoom from her home in Toronto; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Do you think there’s an attention gap for Canadian literature in the United States?

Yes, but for younger Canadian writers there’s also the challenge of established authors who dominate the literary arena. I’m thinking of Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, for example. They deserve their attention, but it’s tough to break through. I don’t seek to align myself with a specific genre or a specific narrative, such as “first-generation writer.” I went to university, but I don’t have an MFA. Instead, I have influences: Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, Flannery O’Connor, Edward P. Jones.

Those authors maintain exquisite control over their prose. Is that important for you and your work, too?

When I was very young, I wanted to be an actor, but on an audition for a production of “Little Red Riding Hood,” I decided to bite the Wolf. The director told me I couldn’t do that because it wasn’t how the story was written. I was more interested in writing the stories than in reciting someone else’s words. I wanted to control the narrative.

I don’t read the Lao language, but I speak it. I have the vocabulary of a 3-year-old and that allows me to understand the Lao sense of humor, especially among women. I think that is a very Lao attitude to turn everything, even painful things, into something to be laughed about. When you can make the thing that makes other people laugh, you’re in charge.

It might surprise some readers that, despite the characters’ hard work and sometimes-spare lives, the novel is filled with humor.

It was a challenge to construct a novel that integrates multiple universes, like the salon and the boxing gym,while making the language appear natural and effortless. I wanted to challenge stereotypes and portray salon workers as having pride and agency. When the women at Ning’s franchise talk in their own language, they’re often very funny. But their humor also shows the issues they face, including racism. I think literary fiction has great power to make readers care about previously overlooked aspects of life. 

Pick a Color isn’t built on plot but on a voice that you follow, and that’s a real challenge for a writer, to locate the power of a novel in voice, to lean not on what happens but on what you hear. In the novel, we can’t hear the clients, but we can hear Ning and she transmits their words. We can hear the sound of a nail salon filled with people, but we can also hear the shift when it becomes a private conversation between salon worker and client.  

Ning, who manages the salon, also lives alone in a small apartment right above it. Is her solitude a difficult thing for her to bear, or not?

Loneliness isn’t the same as solitude. Ning is a content, independent woman in her 40s. That challenges societal expectations of women’s happiness being tied to relationships or companionship. Even the other nail salon workers don’t really understand why Ning is so solitary and content. It’s not that she doesn’t know love. She knows the act of devotion. She’s devoted to her job. She has a purpose, and people who love have that. 

The novel takes place over the span of one day. There’s only so much you can know about a person in a single day. You have some sense that something has happened to Ning, that something has made her solitary, but to reveal what that is would, I think, betray the form. It creates a lot of questions for the reader, but I love that—unlike a long novel of 400 or 700 pages that answers all those questions, [but] then we close it and never think of it again. A novel of 200 pages like this will, I hope, have readers wondering more about Ning. 

Ning is single. Did your own recent divorce contribute to her experience?

I don’t like to provide too many details about my personal life that might affect a novel’s magic, but many people know that I recently published a [New York Times] “Modern Love” essay called “Divorce Is a Gift” about ending my 12-year marriage. The reactions to the piece were mixed, with many women relating to it and many men finding it controversial. 

A lot of people think if you just offer somebody love that that is enough. There was love in my marriage, but it was not enough. To watch a woman say that and to do what she wants is not something we’re used to seeing. Women are often there to serve as mothers or wives, which are lovely things to be. But when you don’t have that role, people don’t know what to do with you. And in fact, you are put in a position to explain why you don’t want that. What is wrong with you? The way in which we write about immigrants and refugees is very narrow. But, also, I think the way we write about women is also very narrowing. 

Since you’re now single and you don’t have children, what challenges do you have in your independent life as a writer?

Much of my life has involved working at paying jobs, including preparing taxes and doing research for a publisher of investment advice. Now I’m able to write full time, and I view those previous jobs as writer residencies, because they allowed me to pay my bills and then write during my free time. But having agency over my own work schedule and decisions is important. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do what I love, and I appreciate the achievements of my fellow writers, too. That said, publishing is a precarious business. Publishing a debut short story collection during the pandemic was a risk. I want to emphasize the support of publishers and readers who embraced my work anyway.

Before I wrote a novel, I didn’t know how to take up space. Before I wrote a novel, I’d written four poetry books and a short story collection. I’m very comfortable saying a lot with very little. But you can’t do that with a novel. You have to actually take up space.

Bethanne Patrick is the author of Life B and host of the Missing Pages podcast.