Misplaced Love

A bittersweet, gently satirical collection of fiction set mostly in Winnipeg's Jewish community and Toronto, the stories in Misplaced Love are often tragedies that border on the farcical.There is a range of misplaced and lost loves here, many of the characters having chosen the wrong person to love, time to love, expression of their love, or kind of loving. "Lot's Wife" is a compelling story of a man's devotion to his wife in a nursing home, told with a plain-spoken, mordant humour that steers it clear of sentimentality. In "Dr. Weltzschmerz, I Presume," a homemaker tries to live an orderly life in a disorderly world of uncertainty, lapsed faith and psychiatrists' appointments.Dwyer captures the rhythms and idioms of Yiddish-influenced vernacular perfectly. This a colourful, lively collection of endearing reprobates and regular people trying to cope with circumstances to which anyone could relate. Each story deals with love as prayer: for kindness, understanding, and acceptance, which may be the most we can hope for.