Marrow: Penguin Specials
About
In a small village in the Balou Mountains, Fourth Wife You faces an impossible burden: her four children are all mentally impaired. When a cure for the family curse appears, it demands a sacrifice so primal and absolute that no one could reasonably be expected to make it — except, perhaps, a mother. Yan Lianke's novella is a concentrated dose of the moral extremity that defines his longer work. The story is relentless and claustrophobic, trapping the reader inside a mother's impossible calculus: how much of yourself can you destroy to save the people you created? The answer is more devastating than the question. A chilling tale of family responsibility pushed past every limit — and a reminder that Yan Lianke's shortest works cut deepest.
