"The literary master whom Huang seems most to resemble is Anton Chekhov. Huang portrays his characters with the same kind of compassionate objectivity, gentle humor, and sharp poignancy. His style is pithy, direct and clear... the clash between traditional ways and urban exigencies, the desire to fit in, the need to save face and the difficulty of making a living without losing one's self-respect are problems these characters confront every day, problems that will strike a chord with readers everywhere."
Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times Book Review (Best Books of 2001) "The nine original stories... and Howard Goldblatt's sensitive translations of them are now poignant classics that do credit to David Der-wei Wang's new Modern Chinese Literature form Taiwan series... Huang's fertile imagination moves amid squatters, grotesques, misfits, oddballs
people with lifestyles characteristic of a poor, developing country prematurely unsettled by urbanization, world politics, and globalization... The characters'guilt, despair, and defiant pride are universal, generally revealed in subtle but startling ways."
World Literature Today