Please, please don’t let the title of Frances Itani’s fine short story collection, Poached Egg on Toast, stop you from reading the book. Once you finish the title story (and last in the collection), you’ll see what Itani’s driving at with the title. Until then, you may be puzzled – and perhaps annoyed – at the disconnect between the tough, well-written stories and the bland name Itani has given to the collection.

The book begins and ends with stories of older couples whose affection for each other has somehow gone off the rails. Both stories are told from the man’s point of view, both have rural settings, both involve a rifle. But the first one ends with the man and woman coming back together because of a nearly mystical experience the man has with a dying whale, while the last spirals out of control from a disagreement about what to have for breakfast – poached egg on toast. Itani seems to be saying that we must be careful not to let small disagreements grow because we do not know where they will lead.

That is not new wisdom, but Itani gives it renewed force. Several of her other stories, such as “Sarajevo” and “The Thickness of One Piece of Paper,” visit, quite literally, the battlefields of the world. A recurring character type is a man whose dangerous but unquestionably worthwhile work keeps him from his wife for long periods. These stories can be read as homages to the people who try to solve our international problems when we allow them to get away from us. They also appear to be discreet love letters to Itani’s husband, Major Tetsuo “Ted” Itani, who had a long career in the Canadian military and now works for an international humanitarian agency.

Itani also has a genius for evoking landscape and places. Many stories take place beside the sea or a river, and the smell of the water and the lash of the wind rise from the page. The winner of a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for her novel Deafening, Itani once again shows here what a good writer she is. It’s just too bad about the title.