In “Phillip is Dead,” a young woman reflects on her time abroad with her first lover—the twisted, experience-hungry Phillip—prompted by his untimely death. “Suffering” tells the story of a widow named Ling who is plagued by a mysterious skin disease in a country where the beauty of a woman’s skin is of the utmost importance. In “Self Portrait with Ghost,” Jin reimagines “Wants” by Grace Paley. A burgeoning writer encounters the ghost of her mentor on a park bench, and is forced to confront the ways in which she is fundamentally different than her mentor in important matters such as language and the concept of reality. “The Odd Women” completes the collection, braiding together the tales of three women—one who can make herself immaterial, one who reflects whatever form of herself the people around her wish her to be, and one who has the ability to split herself into different physical manifestations of her personality. What results is a spectacular commentary on human nature as told through genetic mutation, and set in a future world plagued by war and struggling.  Beautiful, thought-provoking, and wholly unique, the ten stories that make up Self Portrait with Ghost further establish Meng Jin as a remarkable new literary talent.