This brilliant little novel, set against the backdrop of post-Mao China, juxtaposes recollections of childhood, pet ownership, and marriage with discussions of art, sex, and murder, weaving together an absurdist tapestry that is the inner life of the novel's felicitously named protagonist, Huang Haha. Subversive, iconoclastic, and wholly irreverent.

This brilliant little novel, set against the backdrop of post-Mao China, juxtaposes recollections of childhood, pet ownership, and marriage with discussions of art, sex, and murder, weaving together an absurdist tapestry that is the inner life of the novel's felicitously named protagonist, Huang Haha. Subversive, iconoclastic, and wholly irreverent.