Nine stories by poet and fiction writer Swan (On the Edge of the Desert) skillfully track time's
\t\t toll on the ability to live and love fully. The title story, appearing last, is
\t\t set at a quiet camp on a lake owned by an aging divorcee; she's surprised to
\t\t find her loneliness and growing feeling of being diminished by time allayed by
\t\t a young family of new neighbors. "Women Who Don't Tell War Stories" brings
\t\t together two WWII veterans and their wives after 50 years, while old Uncle
\t\t Lazarus returns from the fog of his own death in order finally to enjoy life
\t\t for the first time. "Exiles," set amid a colony of politically active
\t\t expatriates in Spain, underscores how the introduction of love opens a pleasing
\t\t prospect on the present for a widow. There's an elegiac quality to these
\t\t well-crafted tales. (Mar.)
