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I'd like to alert readers to a book called Boat Of Stone, by Maureen Earl. That "Boat Of Stone" isn't just another Holocaust story is evident from the very beginning of Maureen Earl's splendid novel. Earl has written a fictionalized account of the SS Atlantic, one of many ships filled with Jewish refugees hoping to buy their way out of the horrors of the Third Reich after the world had closed its doors to Jewish migrs. On the ship's arrival in Palestine in November 1940, a month after leaving Germany, its occupants were arrested and interned in a British penal colony on the African island of Mauritius, where they remained until August 1945. The book is less a chronicle of an historical event than it is a meditation on the ways in which world events that affect us directly combine with what belongs to us alone. The story is set in Haifa, where Earl's protagonist, Hanna Sommerfield, lives with her son and daughter-in-law. Hanna's matter-of-fact telling of the Atlantic's voyage emerges in pieces, and the harshness of the past is ameliorated by the gentler reality of her present. In describing the events of the five years at Beau Bassin, the prison on Mauritius, Hanna converses with her husband, Daniel, who died on the island before he was able to hold his son and before an accident in which Hanna lost her foot. She ponders and recounts her marriage, talks about her parents and sister who perished in concentration camps, and wonders who she and Daniel might have become under different circumstances. "It's not so bad being old," she tells him at the beginning of the book. "People don't expect me to be so polite now. That's quite a relief for me, as you can imagine." Hanna is forthright and direct about her situation and that of others, and her sense of humor is right on target. Supporting characters are equally quirky and real: Josef, encountered in a cafe; Gerda, who wears increasingly strange hats and hand sews baby clothes out of a tablecloth for Hanna's great-grandchild; the baby's absent-minded father, Eli; and her granddaughter, Lara. Hanna's got a lot to say, and she doesn't hold back. Her forthrightness both enervates and infuriates those around her, but this book is populated with strong characters, which makes for a lot of entertaining dialog. Hanna's version of her life with Daniel is recounted in vignettes in among the business of her daily life. Hanna and Lara's visit to a past-lives-regression seminar hosted by a doctor from California dredges up more than old identities. Through her willingness to confront what befalls everyone who ages, Earl has added a much-needed dimension to our literature.