"Blume Lempel is a fearless storyteller whose imagination skillfully moves between the realistic and the fantastic, the lyrical and the philosophical. Her subjects like her settings -- Paris, Poland, Brooklyn, Tel Aviv, California -- range widely. A Holocaust survivor speaks to the shadows in her garden; a pious old woman imagines romance; a New York subway commuter forges a bond with a homeless woman; and in the title story, a mother is drawn into a transgressive relationship with her blind son. Lempel's narratives are masterpieces of poetic imagery and startling modernist touches, suffused with an abiding compassions"--