The White Road and other stories

What links a cafe in Antarctica, a factory for producing electronic tracking tags and a casino where gamblers can wager their shoes?

They're among the multiple venues where award-winning writer Tania Hershman sets her unique tales in this spellbinding debut collection. Fleeing from tragedy, a bereaved mother opens a cafe on the road to the South Pole.

A town which has always suffered extreme cold enjoys sudden warmth.

A stranger starts plaiting a young woman's hair. A rabbi comes face to face with an angel in a car park.

An elderly woman explains to her young carer what pregnancy used to mean before science took over.

A middle-aged housewife overcomes a fear of technology to save her best friend.

A desperate childless woman resorts to extreme measures to adopt.

A young man's potential is instantly snuffed out by Nature's whims.

A lonely widow bakes cakes in the shape of test tubes and DNA. A number of these stories are inspired by articles from science magazines, taking fact as their starting points and wondering what might happen if . . .? In these surreal, lyrical stories, many of which are only a few pages long, Tania Hershman allows her imagination free reign, as her characters navigate through love, death, friendship, spirituality, mental illness and the havoc wreaked by the weather.