Cheuse, A: Fires

Finely-honed portraits of hope and change, these twonovellas are linked so skillfullythattheyachieve the intensity ofa single novel in which some characters succeed and others failonseparate but equally compelling quests. In "The Fires," Gina Morgan makes a pilgrimage to Uzbekistan to carry out her husband's final wishto be crematedonly to find herself entirelyat sea in the strange new reality of the former Soviet republic, while in "The Exorcism,"Tom Swanson begins to make sense of his lifewhen he retrieves his angry daughter from her exclusive New England college after her expulsion for setting fire to a grand piano."