Serve the People!

About

It is 1967, the peak of the Mao cult. Liu Lian, the bored wife of a military commander, establishes a secret rule: whenever the household's wooden "Serve the People!" sign is taken down, young soldier Wu Dawang must attend to her personal needs. What begins as a power game escalates into a forbidden affair so politically dangerous that both participants risk everything — and so erotically charged that neither can stop. Yan Lianke's brilliant satire turns Maoist rhetoric into foreplay, using the language of revolutionary devotion to describe acts that would get both lovers executed. The comedy is ferocious; the political critique is deadly serious; and the love story, improbably, is genuine. A novel that proves the most subversive act during the Cultural Revolution wasn't dissent — it was desire.