Press 53
218 pages, $17.95

Review by Denton Loving

The title of Clifford Garstang’s novel in stories, What the Zhang Boys Know, is abbreviated from one of the book’s central stories, “What the Zhang Boys Know About Life on Planet Earth.”  While the Zhang boys, Simon and Wesley, are influenced by events long before their lifetimes and places far away, their lives are centered on a questionable part of Chinatown in Washington, D.C. and specifically on a condominium building called The Nanking Mansion.

Despite the title’s implications, the Zhang family is not explored in these stories any more than the other residents of the condominium complex.  Simon and Wesley Zhang, along with the building, serve as a framework to explore an intricately-woven series of relationships between neighbors.  These are people who often appear to have very little in common with each other, at least on the surface.  But all of them have suffered incredible losses.  They are alternately failing and succeeding the rough navigation through life. Continue reading →