This is a book of short stories. The problem with short stories is that you just get interested in the characters and then they leave you. The problem with many of Edith Pearlman's characters created in these stories is that you want to stay with them but only a couple of them appear in more than one story. It is not always because they are likeable or even that you empathise with all of them that you want more of them. It is because they all have humanity and tell us something about what it means to be human. There are common threads. For example Judaism, European experiences and American experiences for European immigrants. The stories range from fantastical to possible to downright gritty in their subject matter. But each has an inner core which draws the reader in and pushes you out the other side thinking in a different way about life. These are stories to keep on the book shelf and reread over the years again and again. Like poetry I guess.