In these beautiful, sensuous stories about Japanese-Canadian life and family history, Gerry Shikatani explores, with a fine, enamoured eye, a man in the middle of life, looking both forward and backward. "Lake" finds a father and two of his adult children at the cottage, tenderly, tentatively comparing versions of their lives together. In "Michiko", an elderly woman returns alone to British Columbia, to the scenes of her childhood before the forced evacuation of Japanese Canadians during World War II. In "B", history catches up with the narrator in Paris and on the Skeena River, in a gothic tale of obsessive sex and the relentless circles that the past can create.

Gerry Shikatani is the author of A Passion for Food: Conversations with Canadian Chefs, Lake and Other Stories, Aqueduct, 1988: Selected Poems and Texts, A Sparrow’s Food (Coach House Press), The Book of Tree (Underwhich Editions), and the co-editor of Paper Doors: Japanese-Canadian Poetry in English. Journalist, performance artist, poet, fictioneer, sports expert and gourmet, Shikatani’s international reputation is growing. He divides his time between Montreal, Paris, Vancouver and Toronto.

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