Yvonne Fein is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. This collection of stories investigates experiences that have ravaged people – often irreparably.

In ‘Boat People’, Claire publicly and contemptuously argues with her lecturer, an apologist for psychopathic regimes. The Dean, an Australian Jew of Anglo-convict descent rather than Holocaust-survivor stock, orders her to write why her opinion is relevant to academic argument. She tells the tragic stories of her grandparents. whose legacy causes her to cling to a tradition of persecution – a poignant beginning to the collection.

Fein’s dark humour makes the other stories entertaining as well as deeply thought-provoking. In ‘Neighbours’, I laughed out loud as Ruthie studies in the toilet, which is only two metres from the neighbour’s kitchen where they loudly berate their son for his failure to get a wife. Ruthie becomes actively involved from her toilet seat with very funny results. ‘Brothers in Law’ quotes Orson Welles: if you want a happy ending, it depends where you stop your story. Fein stops it in several happy places, but at other times continues on ruthlessly.

The last story is a novella in two parts: firstly the adventures of Kate and friends in a finishing school for privileged youth in Switzerland; secondly, her hard-working stint volunteering at a kibbutz in Israel. These vivid characters have lives full of suspense, laughter and tragedy.

In the light of tragic events between Israel and Palestine, this collection is a reminder that many endings are not happy and people are still being stripped of their humanity.

Reviewed by Judith Grace