Combining elements of both Chinese materiality--the love of physical things--and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue's stories invite her readers into an immersive landscape that blends reality and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and oblivion. She brings us to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable and can make us hyperaware of the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Delightful, enchanting, and filled with secrets, Can Xue's newest collection shines alight on the forces that give contours to the visible terrain we acknowledge as reality.

Story of the slums --Our human neighbors -- The old cicada -- The swamp -- Sin -- The other side of the partition -- Shadow people -- Crow Mountain -- Catfish pit -- Euphoria -- Lu-er's worries -- Her old home -- I am a willow tree -- The outsiders -- The queen -- Venus.