Strange Ways; of fremde Vegn

Vividly set in a Polish shtetl at the turn of the twentieth century, this surprisingly modern story deals with an illicit love affair between a handsome and successful married man and a beautiful and sensitive career woman who entertains her many male friends in her literary salon. Affected by the arrival of the railroad, the shtetl residents begin to adopt the strange ways of a new generation who do not live as their parents and grandparents did before them. Sheyndel, the heroine, and Borukh, her lover, are universal types; but they have been fleshed out by the author into such real and believable people that we easily identify with them. The delicately etched love story with its many unexpected twists and turns is rendered in a fluid translation, making for gripping reading.