In these spellbinding stories, Yiyun Li, MacArthur “Genius Grant” and PEN/Hemmingway Award-winner and acclaimed author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Vagrants, give us exquisite fiction, filled with suspense, depth, and beauty, in which history, politics, and folklore magnificently intertwine with the human condition.
In the title story “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl,” a professor introduces her middle-aged son to a favorite student, unaware of the student’s true affections. In “A Man Like Him,” a lifelong bachelor finds kinship with a man who is wrongly accused of an indiscretion. In “The Proprietress,” a reporter from Shanghai travels to a small town to write an article about the local prison, only to discover a far more intriguing story involving a shopkeeper who offers refuge to the wives and children of inmates. In “House Fire,” a young man who suspects his father of sleeping with the young man’s wife seeks the help of a detective agency run by a group of feisty old women.
Written in lyrical prose and with stunning honesty, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl reveals worlds strange and familiar, and cultures both traditional and contemporary, to create a mesmerizing and vibrant landscape of life.
