In this striking collection of short stories, written over a twenty-year period, we find Buckstein, the storyteller, at his most lyrical. Having completed his works charting the Jewish history of his family and community in the Carpathian town of Sighet (The Trap, With an Unopened Umbrella in the Pouring Rain, The Fate of Yaakov Maggid, also published in English by Istros), his voice is here set free to explore the joys in the details of the everyday. The collection opens with an invitation to a wax-work museum, where the viewer is not confronted with the likenesses of the rich and famous, but of ordinary people; neighbours and acquaintances each with a story to tell, each looking for that elusive feeling of happiness, which, unless we are very vigilant, is so often recognised only in retrospect. His heroes’ lives are presented with deep understanding, with humour, sometimes bordering on irony, but always with empathy and love. A sensitive reader need only follow the invitation, and let the wisdom of these stories guide them.
