"A Simple Tale is the touching story of Maria Poniatowski. Born in the Ukraine between the two world wars and taken by the Germans for slave labor, Maria finds herself relocated as a displaced person in Canada. She and her husband settle in Toronto, where he works in construction and she as a cleaning woman. They build a new life and provide their son Radek, who prefers to call himself Rod, with every opportunity. But eventually his success as an engineer only widens the gulf between him and his mother.

What of the past is she to preserve, and how to avoid letting its weight burden the present?" "Framed by the close but tumultuous relationship with one of her employers, Maria's illuminating story is about the moments of connection and isolation that are, ultimately, common to us all.".

"Told by an American scholar living in a dreary suburb of London for a summer, The Hunters is a story in which nothing is what it would seem to be. Removed from the relationships that ordinarily add structure to life and engrossed in researching a book about death, the nameless/genderless narrator soon grows obsessed with the neighbors downstairs. Ridley Wandor lives with her mother and their horde of pet rabbits, occupying her days as a caretaker of the elderly.

Mysteriously, her patients all seem to be dying. As Ridley's story is pieced together from the available clues, the light it casts is intensely evocative."--BOOK JACKET.