Playing for Thrills - Softcover

Shuo, Wang

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842432966 ISBN 13: 9781842432969

Publisher: No Exit Press, 2008

Synopsis

'Playing for Thrills' follows the investigation of a mysterious murder of a possibly imaginary character that took place more than ten years before.

About this title

Review:

Here's a book that succeeds on several different levels: as a gripping (if slightly eccentric) thriller, as a political statement, and as a social document about the way people can lead colorful and dangerously exciting underground lives even in a repressive country. Wang Shuo is a pioneer in what China has labeled "hooligan literature," writing novels, movie scripts, television series, and songs about people and subjects deemed so unfit for public consumption that his work is officially banned (although widely popular). Playing for Thrills, the first of his books to appear in English, is narrated by a former soldier and current wise guy named Fang Yan, who spends his time gambling, eating, drinking, trying to have sex, and wondering if he was indeed involved in the murder of a former army buddy 10 years ago, as the police seem to think. In Howard Goldblatt's lively translation, the author's dialogue has the snap of enhanced reality: "Not so fast," says a character called Fat Man Wu as he describes the small, exclusive "party" that he and Fang Yan belong to. "With us it's instinct. Sooner or later every member of our party cools his heels in jail--that's how we keep things jumping politically." --Dick Adler

About the Author:

Wang Shuo's more than twenty novels have sold nearly ten million copies. He has also written television series, scripts for movies (two of which were recently banned), and songs. Born in Nanjing in 1958, he spent four years in the navy and held a variety of odd and shady jobs, while starting to write. Beloved by Chinese students and workers alike for celebrating the "dark corners of new China" ( Newsweek), he has never lost touch with the world of the low-life slackers who populate his fiction. Wang Shuo lives in Beijing with his wife and daughter.

About this edition

• Publisher: No Exit Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1842432966
• ISBN 13: 9781842432969
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 325