The Night Without a Moon

The Night Without a Moon is a full-length romance novel by the Hong Kong writer Yi Shu, told in the first person. The narrator, Hai Mei, is a woman who has arranged her life within the night: she sleeps by day, rises at dusk, withdraws when the city is at its noisiest, and begins her day amid lamplight and darkness. At the novel's opening she confesses that she has long been a member of the "night party," harboring an almost instinctive loathing for sunlight and daylight. As the narrative unfolds, Hai Mei's past is peeled back layer by layer: as a girl she was drawn into a lawsuit after a conflict with her stepmother, and the lawyer Chen Guowei worked on her behalf and brought the case to a close; the homeless sixteen-year-old then attached herself to this older lawyer, a married man, and for the next ten years traded an unmarried cohabitation for a stable life. Chen Guowei was busy with official duties and also lingered with other women, leaving her with lasting loneliness, idleness, and a mental haze. Hai Mei turns to a female doctor of psychology to confide in and seek treatment, treating her as a rare friend, only to discover that the other's closeness had another motive; after the disappointment, she repeats the old path of dependence in a new relationship. With abundant night scenes, clothing details, and witty dialogue, the novel creates a detached and alluring urban atmosphere, and through Hai Mei's self-examination it discusses such issues as status, sacrifice, and independence. Yi Shu's characteristic judgment recurs throughout: young girls often do not care about status, the more they sacrifice the greater they feel, and nothing is more frightening than a woman who cannot live independently. The book closes with an open ending: the heroine drives into the night, leaving her fate undecided and leaving behind the question of "what one lives by."