Storytelling is one way we affirm our humanity, sharing memories and feelings and dreams with each other, the joy of love and the pain of loneliness. In one story in this collection, Hugo Strauss is a man of few words. Raised in the shadow of his parents, two gifted, self-absorbed artists, he devalues his own talent and retreats from the tenderness of love. When he finally meets a young woman who touches his heart, his unhappy past threatens to come between them. In another story, a middle-aged man meets the movie star he worshiped as a teenager and learns the truth about his dreams. Sometimes the stories we tell are touched by fantasy. There is a tale of a discouraged author whose faith in himself is restored by a magical encounter, and another about a predictable, orderly life that is changed forever by the death of a stranger. Stories we tell others, stories we tell ourselves, fictions, fables and fantasies. They are all stories we need to tell.