“My nails are my rhythm section.” (Dolly Parton)

/ madamebibilophile

I mentioned buying two novellas in my post for A Room Above a Shop, and the other one was Pick A Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa (2025). Once again, it was Susan’s enticing review which sent me in search of a copy!

Thank you so much to everyone who left good wishes when I mentioned finishing at work, and this post about a novella in a workplace seems apt for the update that I have a new job – I am extremely relieved! But I’ve a few weeks off between and so far I’m enjoying lots of reading and relaxation 😊

Earlier this year I read Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp which is set in a chiropodist/nail bar in a Berlin suburb. There’s something so appealing about a workplace setting, with disparate characters thrown together, and with a shop there’s the added unpredictability of who can walk in the door at any moment. Pick a Colour is set over the course of one day in Susan’s nail bar and manages all these elements so well.

Susan’s is owned by Ning, an ex-boxer who used to work for the bullying Rachel at the Bird and Spa salon a small distance away. Her nail bar has been open for five years and is called Susan’s because everyone who works there – including Ning – wears name badges with that name on it. The customers don’t notice.

“Looking at the two of us, them sitting on a chair above me, and me down low, you’d think I am not in charge. But I am. I know everything about them, whether or not they tell me. You look at something long enough and you begin to see everything in its details. And you’d be surprised what people tell you when they think you are a stranger and they’re never going to see you again.”

There is a strong theme of power, privilege and colonialism running through Pick a Colour. The city it is set in is unnamed, and the language spoken by the nail technicians is not specified, but they speak it in front of clients who don’t share it, and don’t understand that they are being appraised and gossiped about.

Quick-witted colleague Mai has a suggestion for Ning’s young, serial-dating and phone-obsessed client:

“She says quickly, ‘I know a guy for her.’ It is as if she’s been lining them up somewhere just for this moment.

‘What guy do you know.’

‘My dad,’ she says. ‘He’s single.’

We laugh because the man is old as a raisin that fell underneath the fridge from eighty years ago.

‘He doesn’t know how to text, though,’ I say. ‘So I don’t think it will work out for them.’

 I turn back to the waitress.”

Ning deliberately remains enigmatic: to her clients, her colleagues and as a narrator. A new staff member, Noi, joins and Ning is stern with her. She doesn’t join the others for lunch and for clients who ask about her life she makes something up. As readers we are privy to her memories of working for Rachel and her boxing coach Murch so we are aware of some of her trauma, but much remains unexplained.

“I look at the finger I don’t have. I’m actually quite proud of it and want to hold it up anytime someone sits in my chair. If my body has a centrepiece, it’s this space where something used to be.”

We follow Ning, Mai and Noi throughout the day as they expertly manage the logistics of the salon and the psychologies of their clients with skill, humour, compassion and also disdain when appropriate. Pick a Colour has a deceptive lightness of touch in its exploration of some major themes, encouraging consideration of what lays beyond the surface.

“I’m sure she has friends to talk to over brunch, maybe a therapist, but you don’t want to tell your friends stuff like this. Want to keep up the appearance of what everyone thinks happiness should look like.”

To end, I nearly chose My Name is Not Susan by Whitney Houston, but instead here are Dolly and Patti LaBelle demonstrating the title quote:

24 thoughts on ““My nails are my rhythm section.” (Dolly Parton)”

  6. Congratulations! Not the easiest thing to manage in an economy that’s shifting so rapidly (or maybe that’s more the case in North America) so, although it would have been nicer to have an extended period of reading and charity-bookshop-buying (hee hee), it must be a great relief to have things sorted and now just rest up, for a little while. I’ve skip-read your review because I am really looking forward to reading this one, maybe later this year even. I loved her short stories so much. Her precision, her focus, her unexpected moments of tenderness barely expressed.

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  7. Well done on finding a new job, and great news that you have a little time to regroup before starting. I loved this novella, too https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/three-east-asian-themed-reads-juhee-mun-the-healing-power-of-korean-letter-writing-satoshi-yagisawa-days-at-the-torunka-cafe-and-souvankham-thammavongsa-pick-a-colour/ and I have Marzhan Mon Amour tbr as part of my East Germany pairings for next Nonfiction November if I can manage it!

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    1. Great to hear you have a new job AND that there is a bit of a holiday between gigs – there’s nothing quite like the real rest that you get between jobs.
    2. Susan has also put me onto Katja Oskamp…
    3. That video is hilarious!

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  11. Many, many congratulations on the new job, and I hope it’ll turn out to be everything you’re looking for from your new role. Exciting times!

    Workplace settings offer so much scope for great fiction, so I can see why you were attracted to this one. A timely read from various perspectives!

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