This collection of short fiction features stories that dissect the complexities of human nature with minimalist prose and flashes of black humor. Readers will find themselves chuckling over these contemporary tales of adultery, lonely twilight years, opting out, and the lives of corporate slaves.

The nine short stories in Call Me at This Number and Other Stories paint nuanced portraits of life’s little people, exploring various issues in contemporary society, including relationships, family diversity, migrant workers, female awakening, lies, false appearances, and dilemmas of all kinds.

The author’s experiences living abroad have opened her perspective in looking back at her birthplace. In the title story, “Call Me at This Number”, she depicts the Yilan of her childhood years, bringing to vivid life the dialect and local customs of decades ago. In “Esther”, she draws on keen observations from her years in Southeast Asia to depict the mind games and defensive maneuvering of foreign workers and their employers. And in “Free to Be a Family”, she compares the situations of women from different generations by exploring the incredible friendship between an older woman and the girls downstairs. Effortlessly conveying both girlhood innocence and middle-aged sophistication, the author has given us stories that seem to sum up all the evils of our times, leaving us to ask, in a world like this, do we still have love in our hearts? Is it still possible to be kind?

The author combines humor, criticism, and sensitivity in her work, using the details of daily life as her tools for revealing her characters’ inner worlds. Her gaze, sometimes sentimental, sometimes cold, imbues her stories with more than just suspense-filled plots or love-hate relationship drama. They are also humorous mirrors satirizing modern social issues, bringing us the irreplaceable pleasures of literary fiction.