I've read a book or two lately

Most notably Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang. In a way, it's surprising that I hadn't read this before, since I loved McHugh's collection After The Apocalypse (it might actually be one of my favorite 2 or 3 story collections), but I know exactly why this one went unread. It's because I picked it up 10 years ago, read the first few pages, and found…