About This Novel
What I write about is not losers or people struggling in adversity, but people walking towards me in the streets and alleys, people who are calm on the surface but turbulent on the inside. --Lin Donglin. This is the first collection of short stories by young writer Lin Donglin. It contains 10 short stories carefully written in recent years, covering all aspects of contemporary daily life such as unemployment, poverty, marriage, family, infidelity, urban and rural areas, college entrance examinations, etc. Among countless people, crisis is like a fish swimming in the lower parts of a typical Chinese city, forming a small vortex of dilemma around every ordinary person. It swam to Hua'anli - an urban village composed of low shantytowns and hundreds of handshake buildings - "Hua'anli". It swam to the Alley of the Martyrs - a group of alleys about to be demolished that harbored smoke shops, prostitutes and gangsters - "Alley of the Martyrs". It meets Mr. Ivory Clam - a middle-aged man who has sunk to the bottom of his life and chews crystal clear clam meat with Saigon beer - "Mr. Ivory Clam". It stares down indifferently - a woman trapped in a cellar by a rapist who loses contact with the outside world - "Someone Is Coming". As the New Year approaches, it targets a derailed and disqualified father - he crashes into the guardrail on the right side of the highway while listening to John Cage's Bacchanale, and the snow falls silently - "New Year". And at a certain moment, its eyes also tend to be gentle - a father and son sit in a field on the top floor of the city and watch the sunset - "Return to No Plan"... Crisis always comes cunningly and frankly, but there is no shortage of strategies to mediate and fight against it in daily life. In these stories, you and the characters in the novels mirror each other, and then shatter each other, leaving behind a shimmering spectacle.
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