A Basket of Apples: Stories by Shirley Faessler

With a remarkable ear for dialogue and a keen eye for the biting ironies of life, Shirley Faessler brings the magic of a born storyteller to these linked stories about a coterie of Jewish immigrants in Toronto's Kensington Market in the 1920s and 1930s. Presenting recurring glimpses of the same characters, the stories create a richly-textured, almost novelistic portrait of downtown immigrant life, peopled with pedlars, bootleggers, "dollar down" merchants and ordinary working-class folks down on their luck. All six of the author's acclaimed "Kensington Market" stories are presented here for the first time since their initial publication in book form in 1988. Faessler's friend, Alice Munro, called her "a witty and uncompromising writer," while the Toronto Star described her as "indisputably one of Toronto's most gifted writers." Although Faessler died in 1997, this volume brings her splendid literary voice back to vivid life.