Ada Zhang on the Lives of Others and stanning Eudora Welty

Loss, longing and melancholy dominate the strange and sometimes mordantly funny short stories of Eudora Welty, the writer whose debut 1941 collection, A Curtain of Green is among two books that Ada Zhang has chosen for Shelf Life. The other is William Maxwell's short, taut So Long, See You Tomorrow. Zhang's debut story collection, The Sorrows of Others is a tapestry of first and second generation Chinese immigrants dealing with cultural and geographical dislocation, women on the threshold of adulthood, and intergenerational misunderstanding. Her characters reveal as much about themselves in what they say as in what they don’t.  “Lies say a lot about people," Zhang has said.  "What we choose to lie about can be incredibly telling. Getting your characters to lie or hide the truth is a sure way to get to know them.”  (Audiobook clip from The Sorrows of Others courtesy of Audible).