The gripping tales in Alonso's "Distractions" reflect an attention to detail which ushers each through a graceful and credible telling. Relationships blossom and crumble, except in rare instances of mutual acknowledgement and respect. There are characters well worth our empathy, and surely those that rate sympathy, while others perfectly merit our undiluted loathing. What's important is they all grab our interest, even the dour old aunt who, in one tale, poses for a memorable portrait: "Listening to her is like opening a closet full of dead people's shoes." Nina Rubinstein Alonso is a poet and lifelong devotee and practitioner of ballet, the art and discipline of which are implicit in these intimate excursions on the highways and byways of memory. - Tomas O'Leary