Book
Pick a Colour : A Novel.
Told over a single day, 'Pick a Colour' follows a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name. Souvankham Thammavongsa lives in Toronto, ON. From the author of 'How to Pronounce Knife', winner of the Giller Prize and Trillium Book Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN America Open Book Award.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781039058453
- Physical Description: 192 pages ; 19 cm
- Publisher: Canada : Knopf Canada, 2025.
Content descriptions
| Immediate Source of Acquisition Note: | Library Bound Incorporated |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | FICTION / Cultural Heritage FICTION / Literary FICTION / Sports |
| Genre: | Romance fiction. |
Available copies
- 0 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 1 current hold with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | ON ORDER | pr08010105 | FICTION | On order | - |
- Random House, Inc.
From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.
Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.
   As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identitiesâas anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstancesâwill gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.
   Told over a single day, with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.
