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Novelist Guanlong Cao's autobiographical account of growing up in urban Shanghai affords a rare glimpse into daily life during the 40 turbulent years following the Communist Revolution. Forced to the bottom of Chinese society as "class enemies", Cao's family eked out a meager existence in a cramped attic. The details of their day-to-day existence - the endless quest for enough food, its preparation, Cao's schooling and friends, the stirrings of sexual desire, his dreams and fantasies - are brought to life. The memoir illuminates a world largely unknown to Westerners, one where human pettiness, cruelty, joy, and tenderness play themselves out against a backdrop of political upheaval and material scarcity.