Set in a remote village perched atop a mountain in provincial communist China, Larry Yang's Mountain Cry begins with the sudden death of a husband and father whose family is new to the village's tight-knit community. In the aftermath of that tragic event, the villagers come to know the man's widow, a mysterious mute. With the village's ailing chief unable to intervene, elder members of the community dictate that bachelor Han will be responsible for the woman. As devotion overcomes resentment, Han comes to understand that the dead man's past may not have been as ordinary as he let on. Based on the novel of the same title by Ge Shuiping.