Pick A Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa

From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, 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.

“I live in a world of Susans. I got name tags for everyone who works at this nail salon, and on every one is printed the name ‘Susan.'”

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 complexity—enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, yet haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost.

As the day’s work grinds on, the friction between Ning’s two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—gathers electric, crackling force, demanding a reckoning with how the world of privilege sees women like her.

Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Color confirms Thammavongsa’s place as literature’s premier chronicler of the immigrant experience in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms. This is a story about visibility and invisibility, about the interior lives we carry while performing the roles others expect of us. Perfect for readers who loved The Vegetarian or Convenience Store Woman, this powerful novel will linger long after you turn the final page.

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