How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder - by Nina McConigley (Hardcover)

About the Book

"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"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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

"Nina McConigley is a true original. With a wit so sharp that it makes you bleed as soon as it would make you laugh, she slices through the postcolonial dilemma with all of its complexities and absurdities. Heart-mending and heart-breaking--as only the truth can be."
--Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage

"Spirited and witty, stylish and audacious, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is gorgeously in possession of itself. Its avid curiosity about the world, its alertness to history, and its enormously fun storytelling--with a twist at the end--held me in their spell."
--Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning

"Tender, defiant, and formally daring, Nina McConigley's stunning debut novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is 'not the expected brown person story' but rather a tale of sisterhood and survival, a child's yearning for safety and protection, and the search for wholeness in a world that wants to split you in half. I fell in love with McConigley's fierce, wry narrator Georgie Ayyar from the first page and couldn't stop reading. A powerful, groundbreaking book."
--Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers

"Part thriller, part coming-of-age, part magazine quiz, Nina McConigley's inventive and captivating How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder boldly examines the often hidden and scary parts of childhood. Full of heart and soul, this is a knockout work that deftly tackles the complex bonds of friendship and family--offering up compelling questions for our notions of what it means to truly love."
--Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

About the Author

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.