'Last Of Her Name' Urges Readers: Only Connect
Mimi Lok's debut story collection — a perceptive look at the connections we make and fail to make — doesn't read like a debut. Lok writes with the self-assuredness of a literary veteran.
The title story of Mimi Lok's short story collection, Last of Her Name, opens with Karen, a 12-year-old British girl, lying battered on the floor of her bedroom. She's attempted to recreate a stunt from her favorite martial-arts television program, but failed to intuit the role that special effects played in the scene. "It seemed so effortless, so elegant," Lok writes. "How was Karen supposed to know that her slight, ninety-pound self would be enough to send the wardrobe crashing to the floor?"
