The seventh day : [a novel]
(Book)

Subtitle from cover.

Yang Fei was born on a moving train. Lost by his mother, adopted by a young switchman, raised with simplicity and love, he is utterly unprepared for the tempestuous changes that await him and his country. As a young man, he searches for a place to belong in a nation that is ceaselessly reinventing itself, but he remains on the edges of society. At age forty-one, he meets an accidental and unceremonious death. Lacking the money for a burial plot, he must roam the afterworld aimlessly, without rest. Over the course of seven days, he encounters the souls of the people he{u2019}s lost. As Yang Fei retraces the path of his life, we meet an extraordinary cast of characters: his adoptive father, his beautiful ex-wife, his neighbors who perished in the demolition of their homes. Traveling on, he sees that the afterworld encompasses all the casualties of today{u2019}s China{u2014}the organ sellers, the young suicides, the innocent convicts{u2014}as well as the hope for a better life to come. Yang Fei{u2019}s passage maps the contours of this vast nation{u2014}its absurdities, its sorrows, and its soul.