From the celebrated author of "The Chosen" and "My Name Is Asher Lev, " a trilogy of related novellas about a woman whose life touches three very different men--stories that encompass some of the profoundest themes of the 20th century.

Ilana Davita Dinn believes that without stories there is nothing. Stories feed the present, delineate the past, reveal the future. For three men, Davita beomes the lightning rod that draws their words out of a dark emotional sky. Under her influence, their histories take shape and their narratives unfold.

As a young woman, Davita tutors a teenage Holocaust survivor. Tormented by nightmares, he recounts the story of the old, proud synagogue ark builder - the man whose face is the only one he can rememer from his life before the camps. Then, as a teaching assitant at Barard, Davita encourages a recently defected KGB officer to write the story of the idealistic doctor who saved his wounded arm - and whom he in turn tried to save during the Kremlin's purge of Russian Jews. Finally, after becoming a successful writer herself, Davita moves next door to a renowned professor of warfare. He has been trying to write his memoirs, but has been distracted by his wife's illness. With her help, he uncovers much that he had long forgotten. As each story is witnessed, three very different lives will irrovocably change through the concern of one determined woman.