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Fiction. Pauls Toutonghi's first collection of short stories reveals that he is a master not only of form, but of emotional and colorful tales that range in subject-matter from Houdini's 1908 escape from handcuffed submersion in the Seine to the intertwining of a grandfather's story of death in the trenches of World War I with Picasso's discovery of a friend's suicide. "There is at once a wonderful depth and playfulness in Pauls Toutonghi's stories. They are erudite and experimental, always entertaining. I like the complexities of time and space, the allusions, and the way the stories open unexpected windows on history and individual lives"--Robert Morgan. Toutonghi is a former Fulbright scholar and was awarded the Pushcart Prize in 2001.