A Different Kind of Immigrant Experience: A Guest Post by Nina McConigley

This debut novel that explores family and sisterhood follows two sisters who plot to kill their uncle in the summer of 1986. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Nina McConigley on writing How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder.

Since my first book was short stories, as a writer, everyone expects your next book to be a novel. But I don’t think I am a natural novelist. I made so many mistakes writing this book – and started and stopped multiple times. However, I kept returning to January 1986 and the Challenger explosion. When the space shuttle split apart. And I began to think of all the ways things split – how India and Pakistan split, how families split, how bodies are split in two if you are biracial, and how girls have a kind of split into womanhood. And I began to play with this – and from this, the novel began. I gave myself the framework of a year, 1986, and just thought, I’ll write each month and see what happens.

I made myself a little syllabus of things from 1986. Thank god for YouTube. I spent hours watching old episodes of Punky Brewster, watching TV commercials, and reading Old Sweet Valley Highs. It was so fun to dip back into my childhood. I even ordered a toy I remembered from Etsy.

I have 12 years between publishing my books, so it feels amazing to have this book in the world. I worked on it a lot over a long time. Georgie and Agatha Krishna have been with me and my thoughts for ages. I think the long time between books took pressure off me, as more time went on, no one thought I would write another book. And so, I felt very free to play, to experiment, to have the quizzes and break the fourth wall, to add illustrations. Writing became a joy to me, even though I am writing about dark things like colonialism, abuse, and race. I wanted to tell a different kind of immigrant experience, and I hope I have.