When Alice spends a night with the trader, she discovers a larger version of the cube built for a person. In the broken-down future of ‘‘Time Cubes’’, our protagonist, Alice, becomes obsessed with a hawker who sells cubes that appear to speed up time – forward and back – for the objects inside them. It’s not all about sex and food, though Fu also makes tangible the abstract, such as time and sleep. While the story’s conceit acts as a neat metaphor for the widening gap between the generations, it’s Fu’s redolent description of the textures and aroma of food, of ‘‘tearing into’’ a steamed char siu bao ‘‘releasing a whisper of steam,’’ that makes this such a memorable and hunger-inducing, story. The bread is dry as cotton batting… The deli meat as plainly inedible as slivers of rubber.’’ Responding to this calamity, the story’s protagonist offers a service – a form of artistic therapy – that allows her clients to remember the experience of savouring their favourite meals however in doing so she grows increasingly disconnected from her daughter, who no longer remembers or cares what food once tasted like.
‘‘The cheese tastes like putty, flour paste. In ‘‘Do You Remember Candy’’, an unexplained phenomenon makes food taste rancid. ‘‘Scissors’’ explores notions of trust and consent, but it’s the sensuality of the prose, of the scissors sliding over Dee’s body, the unsettling experience of strange hands groping flesh, that makes this such a stunning bit of writing. Later on, a blindfold is wrapped around Dee’s eyes and the audience is asked to participate – although Dee continues to believe it’s El who is touching her and not the fumbling hands of strangers. While Dee sits submissively, bound to a plain wooden chair, her girlfriend slowly, deliberately, snips away her clothes with the titular object. ‘‘Scissors’’, one of the few reprints in the book, centres around a sex show performed by a couple – Dee and El. This physicality is particularly evident in pieces like ‘‘Scissors’’ and ‘‘Do You Remember Candy’’. As someone encountering Fu’s work for the first time, what struck me about her fiction wasn’t so much the range – though I am drawn to authors who are willing to switch genre lanes – but the physical and tactile quality of her prose, the way her stories engage all the senses. The 12 short stories that make up the collection showcase various influences, including science-fiction, magical realism, and horror.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, with its colourful mosaic cover, is the debut collection from Kim Fu, the author of two novels and a book of poetry.
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