The thirteen stories in "The Tree of Youth" have a richly exotic, sensuous allure: the landscape shifts from cosmopolitan Canada to beautiful Barbados. They also explore, with understated brilliance, the elation and defeat men and women everywhere experience when they yearn for love and a better life. Here is an unblinking vision of the sexual exploits of Bajans, young and old, one that restores the redeeming values of children, family, and art.