Elsewhere: Stories

Yan (Strange Beasts of China) explores human connections and disruptions in this ethereal collection. “The Little House” follows Pigeon, a young writer who joins assorted strangers living in a tent city days after China’s massive 2008 earthquake. Despite being a vegetarian, Pigeon eats meat at the tent city, where she finds a sense of community. In “Shooting an Elephant,” a Chinese woman named Shanshan adjusts to life with her Irish husband, Declan, in Dublin, where she feels a sense of wonder (“In this foreign city, her anonymity soothed her, although she was struck that, here, anyone could turn to her at any moment and start a conversation about practically anything”). As winter sets in, Shanshan asks Declan to take her to Ikea, where the escalators and familiar goods remind her of China. As the story unfolds, readers learn about a rift between the couple and their attempt to mend it. In “Stockholm,” the narrator takes a solo trip from London to Sweden to speak on a literary panel, where her host, a man, belittles her for having to pump her breast milk, prompting her to imagine a postapocalyptic world in which she’s the last remaining human and survives on her own milk. Here and elsewhere, Yan combines dry and subtle humor with her evocative lyrical style. These stories brim with intelligence. (July)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the origin point of a character's trip to Stockholm.