The epigraph of Melanie Cheng’s novel “The Burrow” comes from an unfinished Franz Kafka short story with the same title: “The most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness.

My name is Small Number. This is a story that I heard from my grandmother and that she heard from her grandmother. It is about a coyote, a raven, a rabbit, and the four rabbit holes. My name is Small ...