Carefully crafted, emotionally acute, grounded in the grit and courage of human lives, the 22 tales in this 232-page volume probe life's crisis moments and its lustrous ordinary hours. "Damn well written. These are sharp stories; they pierce one's heart"--Helen Chuckrow, author, Interpreting the Bible with Chutzpah "Deeply personal, exquisite tales, moments of both sublime beauty and grave peril in the protagonists' lives"--Jeremy Lichtman, author, Alien Puzzle Boxes "Dancing close to autobiography, these well-written stories burn from the page"--Richard Bunning, author, Spider World and other fictions Among the stories: a mountain encounter wakes a veteran's numbed feelings; two French Resistance fighters must balance desperate action and raw love; a 1960s activist finds personal and political identity; a single mother's love struggles against terror; dying, an elder seeks some shred of meaning; a detained immigrant child fights to remember her mother; so far, they had outwitted each pandemic.