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...