Elisavietta Ritchie is a woman who has really lived and this verbal rumination on her heritage, the

people she has loved, the family recipes for borscht or cherry vodka or bread

are filled with such exquisite, well-realized detail, a reader is drawn along with

the force of a rip tide on a summer afternoon at the beach. It's all simply so interesting.

And her conversations with the past and recently dead intrigue us: "It

tolls for thee," they remind us, and yes, we all do eventually get out alive according

to this wise woman when it comes our time...