Can Xue's stories collected here are expeditions into the literary fantastic: unaccountable states in which the impossible is commonplace, and the reactions of commonplace people are nothing like normal. Beautiful flowers grow downward into the earth, never seen. Children eagerly consume invisible cotton candy. An articulate cat frets about the midnight visits its owner receives from a hostile figure. The setting is modern China, the city and the country, but the strangenesses are all Xue's own.

Certain motifs are common: motion, often intrusion, into excluded or private spaces; apprehension without seeing, where motion is monitored in nearby but invisible spaces; peculiar family members, friends, or acquaintances, often respected elders, hold clues to events. A sense of discomfort or paranoia is usual. Emotional responses seem out of proportion to what Xue describes.

"Red Leaves," featured in this issue of Belletrista, is typical. Teacher Gu's suspicion of "catmen" seems to arise from nowhere. Vaguely sinister doctors pass unseen in the halls. Another patient is replaced with a pig—no explanation. Gu's former student visits, wearing an opera mask. The season changes by surprise, supplying beautiful red autumn leaves.

The book's blurb calls Xue a "master of the dreamscape," and the dream is an irresistible lens for approaching these stories. But unlike that friend who bores you with recitations of dreams having only personal meaning, Xue's stories are actually interesting.

The task of translation must have been very difficult—Karen Gernant and Chan Zeping have produced a slightly cracked English that fits the stories well. I am reminded in some inexplicable way of the American writer Kelly Link, who, although differently in numerous ways, writes with a similar insistence on the quotidian nature of the fantastic. Why wouldn't an upper-story apartment sometimes be floating in midair? Although it's not for everyone, this is a book for those of us who like puzzling over unanswerable mysteries.