{"id":30555,"date":"2024-11-25T14:04:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T18:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30555"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T20:20:17","slug":"shuang-xuetao-paris-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/11\/25\/shuang-xuetao-paris-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Shuang Xuetao: “Paris Friend”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Paris Friend”<\/strong><\/span>
by Shuang Xuetao<\/span>
translated from the Chinese by Justin Tiang<\/span>
from the December 2, 2024 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had never heard of Shuang Xuetao before this week’s New Yorker story popped up. He is a Chinese writer who has, I believe, just one book translated into English: Rouge Street<\/em>, a collection of three novellas translated by Jeremy Tiang. It looks like there is another, a collection of stories called Hunter<\/em>, coming out early next year from Granta, also translated by Tiang. As is this week’s story, so, though I’m not sure, I think its probable “Paris Friend” is a story from Hunter<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do note that this is not the first time one of his stories appeared in The New Yorker<\/em>. Last October, when I wasn’t posted much here, they published his story “Heart.” I will start with this week’s story and then work back to that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how “Paris Friend” starts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Xiaoguo had a terror of thirst, so he kept a glass of water on the table beside his hospital bed. As soon as it was empty, he asked me to refill it. I wanted to warn him that this was unhealthy\u2014guzzling water all night long puts pressure on the kidneys, and pissing that much couldn\u2019t be good for his injury. He was tall, though, so I decided his insides could probably cope.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I hope you’re all about to have a great final week of November. For those celebrating Thanksgiving, I hope you have a festive and restful holiday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker story is Shuang Xuetao’s “Paris Friend.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,1499],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-yorker-fiction","category-shuang-xuetao","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Paris-Friend-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7WP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31065,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30555\/revisions\/31065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30555"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}