The literary quality of these twenty-one stories by the 1978 Nobel Prize winner is high, with varied plots and settings that unfold in Central Europe —mostly in Poland—, in the United States, and one in Israel.

The themes are the author's usual ones: the clashes between Jews who observe the law and those who seek to assimilate into the enlightened culture; immigration and the difficult task of preserving identity; the aftermath of the Holocaust, etc.

These are rather tragic stories, filled with pain and a generally pessimistic undertone, with characters that Singer skillfully portrays with precise strokes and often with irony. A moral decline is noticeable in many cases (divorces, promiscuity, infidelities, individualism...), all narrated with restraint.