This is inventive storytelling that combines absurd events and traumatised characters in realistic settings that somehow captures the reader’s imagination, despite the unemotional narrative style. Written in a range of genres, these stories have an experimental feel which matches the estranged, grappling protagonists and the surreal plots. There’s plenty of humour and playfulness notwithstanding the stoic reading experience.
Lightning flashes for a few seconds in the distance, then thunder rumbles and blasts open the sky, beginning the deluge. Plump drops of rain coalesce into a downpour. Xiaobing hastily pulls on his raincoat. His first instinct is to run for the car, but he notices that his line has gone taut. Gritting his teeth, he tries to reel in, but his fishing rod gets dragged into the lake and his feet slip out from underneath him. From the lake emerges a man, hook stuck in his ear. The man yanks the hook out and hurls it back into the water, then unfurls a large umbrella and walks ashore.
