One of the great pleasures and honors of designing book covers is being one of the first people to read an author’s manuscript. This is particularly special when it happens to be a debut work, like Akil Kumarasamy’s Half Gods. I distinctly remember rolling through the last few pages and thinking “WOW! Such talent . . . so young!” What a privilege it is to spend my days absorbing the treasures of another artist’s labor.
As I myself am a young(ish) female immigrant from Ireland via Canada, and now residing in New York, I felt an immediate connection to both the author and the characters she conjures. Half Gods is a collection of interconnected short stories, weaving together the old and the young, images of the homeland and the “promised” land. Kumarasamy moves from past to present, as well as from Sri Lanka to the United States, accounting for the relocation of family. The later generations’ immigrant tales take place in New Jersey and Kentucky. Clearly, there is a lot happening. And in all of this, there is a good amount of discomfort, tragedy, and pain—a kind of pain that seems inherent to the dichotomies, or halves, explored in the narrative.
Once I had completed my reading, I met with FSG editor Eric Chinsky. An absolute pleasure to work with, he has total trust in the art department, providing limited but precise guidance. In the case of Half Gods, he left me with the following takeaway: as this was Kumarasamy’s debut, the cover should capture the newness and the strength of a distinct contemporary female voice while staying away from specific ethnic treatments or styles. To me, this meant stay away from things that felt too much like The Interpreter of Maladies and consider heading more towards The Lowland.
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