From Communist China

But without the usually large political message.  The politics is certainly there, embedded in the story lines, but the story have such wonderful lines.

From "Extra"
in A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Yiyun Li

At night as he sleeps, he mumbles in his dreams, his arms and legs thrown to all four directions on the blanket. Granny Lin tucks him in and watches him for a long time, the unfamiliar warmth swelling inside her. She wonders if this is what people call falling in love, the desire to be with someone for every minute of the rest of her life so strong that sometimes she is frightened of herself.
*****

They are still the happy couple on weekends, but Granny Lin worries as she counts the missing socks that she has put out for Kang. She wonders if she needs to talk to him and find out the reason for what he is doing. But every time she opens her mouth, she loses her resolve.

On weekends, as they sit in the shadow of the wisteria, Ganny Lin wonders if this is the love she missed in her younger years,  hand in hand with a dear boy, not asking him to tell her the secret she is not allowed to know.