How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

(Paperback)

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'A fierce and marvelous book with an utterly unique, brightly burning lifeforce' MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD, author of GREAT CIRCLE

'Tender, defiant, and formally daring . . . 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

In the summer of 1986, the Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyars and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and two young cousins - newly arrived from India - into their house in rural Wyoming where they will all live together. Because this is what families do. That is until the sisters decide that it's time for one of their newly arrived family members to die.

How to Commit a Post-colonial Murder is many things. It is a vivid portrait of an extended family; the moving story of the relationship between two sisters; a murder mystery (of sorts); a love letter to the 1980s; a formally-inventive amalgam of first-person narration, pen pal letters, and teen-magazine-style quizzes; and a powerful meditation on race, language, colonialism, trauma, and the meaning of independence.

Reviews

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
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, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
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, author of OUR MISSING HEARTS
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
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, author of A BURNING

Author Bio

Nina McConigley is the author of the acclaimed story collection Cowboys and East Indians, which won the PEN Open Book and High Plains Book Awards, and was longlisted for the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Orion, O, the Oprah Magazine, VQR and elsewhere. McConigley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, an MA in English from the University of Wyoming, and a BA in Literature from Saint Olaf College. She teaches at Colorado State University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She and her family live in Wyoming.