Can Xue draws the reader into a world of the grotesque and the surreal, of uncertain spaces and indeterminate identities, of sexual menace and psychological disorientation. These novellas are about life in post-Mao China, but not the China of social realism or of Western fantasy. At the forefront of China's new literary trends, these two novellas—"Yellow Mud Street" and "Old Floating Cloud"—explore Chinese reality through images of the absurd, sudden and illogical juxtapositions, and the limitless transformations induced by a unique imagination.