In her latest novel, Zhang Yueran offers a stark, nuanced portrait of three women from different socioeconomic backgrounds navigating power, desire, the men in their lives, and a fraught bond that begins to unravel in the wake of an abduction and a corruption arrest
Yu Ling stuffs several Tupperware containers with wagyu beef and Alaskan snow crab legs into a duffel bag, telling Kuan Kuan, the seven-year-old son of the affluent Beijing family she works for, that they’re heading out for a picnic. Outside, instead of the family’s driver, Yu’s boyfriend waits by a battered white van with no license plate. The excited boy suspects nothing, simply glad to listen to the radio and not classical music for a change.
Or add: Theworldofchinese
