The novella follows retired boxer Ning, who works at a nail salon where all employees are simply known as ‘Susan’.
As she turns up to clip, buff and polish her customers’ nails, she finds herself haunted by the what-ifs of paths not taken and lost opportunities. She begins to question her two identities – as an anonymous manicurist and as an observer of her own circumstances.
“I’m really interested in the way people work, whether they’re a bartender or a nail salon worker, or someone who works on a farm. I like to imagine how thinking happens through the body without words, and to portray that as a writer,” Souvankham said in an interview.
“To write about boxing, you really have to know it technically, because readers who are familiar with the sport don’t take it lightly, so I did a lot of research and got a trainer to teach me how to box for a year and a half.
“My goal as a novelist, though, was to take these two different worlds that seem so far apart – boxing and a nail salon – and create a universe where they fit together.
“It was such a tremendous joy to find a connection when my narrator makes a mantra out of her former coach’s refrain, ‘Control the centre line’, and applies it to her clients’ faces when it’s time to pluck their eyebrows,” she added.
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