Showcasing the intensity and perception of a truly gifted writer, this collection of stories transports us to exotic locations as it follows the lives of those on the fringes of society -- a fire-eater, an American and his Korean war bride, a juggler and a trapeze artist, a cleaning woman whose life is interwoven with Marie Curie's. Each must confront, in dramatically different ways, the barriers of time, place and circumstance in that most universal of human experiences: the quest to discover, and understand, the elusive mysteries of love.