Mutual Strangers: And Other Misadventures in Nanjing
By Gu Qian
Translated by Jack Hargreaves
(2021, Translated 2025)
Sinoist Books
Gu Qian has published a number of successful short story collections, including Flat Out and Hi, Long Time No See. He lives in Nanjing and in this collection, Mutual Strangers: And Other Misadventures in Nanjing, Gu turns a self-mocking eye on married, divorced, middle-aged men of leisure who are perpetually on the make–or occasionally, revealing secrets. In “America Story,” a man reluctantly hosts a college friend who has just returned from the US, certain that his friend will be singing the praises of life in America while also demonstrating a precipitous drop-off in his intelligence. In ”Hello, Mailman,” a young husband who is sent far afield for work relates how his inability to manage his long distance lead to both the collapse of his marriage and – somehow – an enviable “second act.” Many of the stories take place in restaurants. The meal has been eaten, and a group of old friends are knocking back drinks and letting off steam. Well into their cups, they whine about their wives and their children, flirt with waitresses, and discuss problems they are having with their mistresses. They express a strong desire for change, often pinning their happiness on being accepted by an unavailable beauty, or, really, any woman at all. Gu reveals the men in all their vanity and shamelessness. Together, they regress to the sensibilities of their teenage years. Their faces are lined by age, bad diets, and alcohol, and their suits are rumpled and a little worse for wear, but their conversation is lighthearted, teasing, and punctuated by raucous laughter. In many of the stories Gu presents us with characters who are at the brink of fully realizing what they should have done or what they need to do. They see a shimmering of self-awareness, or even a vision of the better man they might become, and then it vanishes. Gu is sometimes described as a caricaturist, but in Mutual Strangers, he writes about these man-boys in a joshing, forgiving, and familiar tone. The women, too, are also struggling with the meaning of their marriages and love lives, yearning for an indefinable sense of happiness that hovers just out of reach. And Gu’s storytelling is captivating. Each story bristles with memorable characters and translator Jack Hargraves renders the stories in a beautiful range of tones and colors.
“Before they married, my mum went out in public with my dad just once. She had seen what the regiment received for rations and was afraid he would be in need of a good meal, so she brought along some cans of meat only to have him thunder at her on seeing them. “You’ve more money than sense, why waste it on this luxury rubbish?” Once they tied the knot and my mum had started to pop out children, she discovered, by stealing a glance at a letter from my dad’s hometown, that he had already married before signing up, and he had two kids. Years later Mum would tell me, “If I’d known he had a wife I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him, whatever his circumstances.” But Dad did right, otherwise this fucking world wouldn’t have me in it. Thinking of Dad’s secret reminded me of the one my mum had been guarding all her life. Whether she was ever as happy in their marriage as Dad? I realised it was quite possible I would never find out. I wasn’t going to stand over my dying mother’s bed to ask, “How has your life been? Happy?” Let her have her secret, I thought, it might end up being the one thing she can take with her.” — “I’ll Tell You a Secret.”
