A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories

by Vi Khi Nao

Winner of FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize. An unflinching and riveting meditation on the pain that attends every facet of existence—love and sacrifice and intimacy and beauty—a biography of torture.
Like all of Vi Khi Nao’s acclaimed and award-winning work, A Brief Alphabet of Torture bleeds across many modes and genres—poetry, essay, fiction, drama—and itself almost constitutes a novel of a different kind. Each tale captures the emotional, physical, psychological, political, and artistic concerns that pervade life like breath and which, even when very beautiful, are filled with pain.
These stories are all facets of Nao’s imagination that define the way she views creation, sexuality, violence, and the role of life in an ontological system that relies heavily on cultural, social, and artistic duress. Some stories like “Winter Rose” and “I Love You Me Neither” rise above the boundaries of pain to places of beauty and grace and love, where pain has no place, but make clear how rare such moments appear in life.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 19, 2017

About the author

Vi Khi Nao is the author of many books and is known for her work spanning poetry, fiction, play, film, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her forthcoming novel, The Italian Letters, is scheduled for publication by Melville House in 2024. In the same year, she will release a co-authored manuscript titled, The Six Tones of Water with Sun Yung Shin, through Ricochet. Recognized as a former Black Mountain Institute fellow, Vi Khi Nao received the Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize in 2022.
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Reviews

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

How rare, how wonderful, when a book arrives with the ambition and desire of this one, such a complete set of interests, fully lacking the pitfalls and pratfalls which typically characterize its innovative ilk. The work is animate in its aims, pressing you to go on. Speaking as someone who has seen what it can do, I’d suggest you do as it says.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Routinely in this astonishing collection Nao becomes a torture artist, peeling the skin off of story, slicing in with surgical precision and poking around in its insides. The surreal is absurdist; the violence is real; and Nao’s prose kills: artfully weaponized, surprising, superb. From “Sexual Dogs,” in which an affluent woman turns humans into dogs and trains them as her prostitutes: “The prostitute spent an entire day pleasuring her until her face cut open like light.” In “The Watermelon Body,” a woman wishes her suitor to be a watermelon: “She believed that sexually (there was no other way of looking at it), a watermelon was truly a perfectly designed man. Seeds dispersed throughout the body; his sexual belongings ubiquitously within reach. In other words, the woman found the body of a man with all the eggs in one basket as defective. Seeds should be scattered” (60). “The Bald Sparrow” is perfect. The title story is an index of cruel, imaginative horrors. I’m impressed and a little bit scared.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounding up from a 3.5, I think, because the stories that do work in this collection work SO WELL - and the ones that didn't largely didn't work *for me* as opposed to a more general "didn't work" statement. Some of these stories lit my fire in a way that hasn't happened since I was first introduced to more experimental and avant-garde playwrights like Mac Wellman, Chuck Mee, Suzan-Lori Parks. Some of them were just dripping with beauty. And some of them are fucking harrowing. And still others are... well, they just are. You'll know how you feel about the collection by the end of the first section of four stories; for me, I was cautiously in.

This is one of those collections I never would've ever encountered were it not for SMDB - and, as ever, my reading life is enriched for the fact that I did.

[Aric Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

For years this has been my go to recommendation to anyone. It is still just as gorgeous and haunting after multiple reads.

I’m excited for Vi Khi Nao’s latest ‘My Ardent Love for the Pencil’ which comes out this month.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories that completely disregard the concept of what a short story has to be. Some feel closer to scattershot poetry while others take on a short play form, but all of them are linked by some of the most progressive language use I’ve encountered from contemporary literature in a long time—unsurprisingly, as many good things in lit these days go, the thematic content of these stories often slides into the world of queerness, with almost every story being completely suffused with a queer worldview and imprint that is just really fresh. I was so excited by some of these stories that I actually straight up emailed Nao to tell her how great I thought it was. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a short story collection where every single piece knocks me out, but this one was still one of the better. Easy 8/10 for me and a definite rec for anyone who can hunt it down, but especially to my non-hetero pals that want to feel seen and dazzled by what language can really do unchained.

[Jacob Hoefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vi Khi Nao's works have never failed to amaze me. Bizarre, beautiful, and honestly biting. The stories in feel like a love song, and horror film at the same time. I have yet to read an author with as unique (or well defined) of a voice in some time. Do yourself a favor and check it out! (Also Fish in Exile)

[jackthemlits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not gonna lie I actually liked it. I did not really expect the content because the first was like.... wow.... yeah be careful before you read his because it could be shocking. But the second half isn't so bad. I really love the writing and the short story in the second half of the book.

[Kyle Fitzpatrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, intense read that questions the senseless as real and not.

[Jacopo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too fine for my taste buds. Crazy imagination and stories. Was unsure whether to give it a 5 or 1. Could be either or.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't work for me writ large, unfortunately. Love other things I've read by Vi Khi Nao, so I'll reserve any further comment under the category of 'it's not you, it's me.'

[Mason MB · Rating 5 out of 5]

makes u think...

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this collection was very edgy. edgy to a point that it was difficult to understand for me. most of the stories exist briefly, as if you were trying to recount absurd dreams and nightmares to someone. the writing can be striking. but i'm not sure if i actually enjoyed this collection overall. over half of it i didn't care about. one story i thought was particularly bad. the fourth and fifth sections were great, and the last two stories were my favourite.

i felt like i wasn't smart or aware to understand a lot of these stories. however i'm interested in reading other works by this author to satisfy my thirst for cohesion and comprehension.