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who shouldn’t forget. These days, they can’t say anything, though. They know the risks of speaking out: that there’s a huge difference between having government approval and losing it, in terms of the housing you’ll get, access to international funding, and so on.” Chan is even able to see the pluses of He Dongsheng’s “Action Plan for Ruling the Nation and Pacifying the World.” “I saw the economic crisis of the novel as the government’s great opportunity to take control. That was the best way that things could have worked out; mine was the most optimistic scenario.”

Both Chan Koonchung and his fictional namesake in The Fat Years voted with their feet by moving to Beijing from Hong Kong a few years ago; both are, to an extent, seduced by the lure of a rising China: “This place is too fascinating to ignore,” Chan confesses. “The Beijing I described in The Fat Years is basically the Beijing in which I live. There’s nowhere quite like it.” Is it also as frightening as his fictional Beijing? I asked as we left the restaurant after lunch. He gazed about the airy, glazed mall, as we glided down the escalator back to street level on a perfect, blue-skied August day. “Not today. I don’t know about tomorrow, though.”

JULIA LOVELL, FEBRUARY 2011

A NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

This book uses the pinyin Romanization system. Only a few letters sound very different from normal English. They are:

c = ts (Fang Caodi sounds like Fang Tsao-dee)

q = ch before i (qigong sounds like chee-gong)

x = sh (Xiao sounds like Shee-ao)

He in He Dongsheng is pronounced something like Huh

LIST OF MAIN CHARACTERS

Lao Chen, the protagonist, a journalist and novelist with writer’s block

Fang Caodi, an erstwhile friend of his, who has led a globe-trotting, jack-of-all-trades life

Little Xi, another old friend of Lao Chen. Had a short-lived career as a lawyer, now has a marginal existence as an Internet political activist

Big Sister Song, her mother, the owner of the Five Flavors restaurant

Wei Guo, Little Xi’s son, a law student and ambitious Party member

Jian Lin, an acquaintance of Lao Chen, a wealthy real estate entrepreneur, and holder of cinema evenings

He Dongsheng, his cousin, a high-ranking government official

Zhang Dou, a former child slave-laborer, now an aspiring guitarist

Miaomiao, his girlfriend, formerly a journalist

Ban Cuntou, another cousin of Jian Lin, and once a classmate of Little Xi; now a highly influential figure in government circles

Wen Lan, a former girlfriend of Lao Chen; an international jetsetting political adviser

Dong Niang, a high-class prostitute

Zhuang Zizhong, an elderly editor of a literary journal

Hu Yan, an academic, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expert on rural China

Gao Shengchan and Li Tiejun, organizers of an underground Protestant church, the Church of the Grain Fallen on the Ground, in Henan Province

Liu Xing, a former classmate of Gao Shengchan, and a local government official

County Head Yang, a young and ambitious local government official

Part One

1.

TWO YEARS FROM NOW

Someone not seen in a long time

One whole month is missing. I mean one whole month of 2011 has disappeared, it’s gone, it can’t be found. Normally February follows January, March follows February, April follows March, and so on. But now after January it’s March, or after February it’s April … Do you understand what I’m saying—we’ve skipped a month!”

“Fang Caodi, just forget it,” I said. “Don’t go looking for it. It’s not worth it. Life’s too short; just look after yourself.”

No matter how clever I was, I could never change Fang Caodi. Then again, if you really wanted to search for a missing month, Fang Caodi would be the one to do it. In his life, he’d probably spent quite a few missing months just existing. He was always turning up unexpectedly in odd places like he had vanished for a million years and was being reborn just when you were least expecting him. Maybe someone like him really could accomplish such a politically unfashionable task as restoring a missing month.

The