A sweeping novel that follows a Chinese village over several decades as it grows into a vast, booming city. The story centres on one ambitious family and the people who use cunning, favours and shifting loyalties to rise in a changing country. Told with irony and exaggeration, it links personal greed to the larger story of rapid development and political power. It is both a family chronicle and a satirical portrait of modern China's hunger for growth, and of what is lost along the way.