Mutual Strangers – Gu Qian

Collecting two decades of remembrances from China’s premier literary caricaturist, these short stories offer bite-sized misdeeds committed by Nanjing’s underground literati. Freed from family duties, the “boys” spend their nights freewheeling and trying their luck with pretty girls amid a haze of cigarette smoke and cheap beer. However, as the evening drags on, trouble brews and dates turn sour. Their only real solace is an unspoken camaraderie. After the tales of cruel pranks, cramped apartments, sleazy karaoke bars and dead cats, maybe the joke will be on them – but for now, the night has only just begun.