Small Doses of Arsenic by Sylvia Welner and Kevin Welner is an intimate memoir. Set against a historical background, it is told in the unconsciously humorous, blunt style of a Czech woman from rural Bohemia.

Tonča’s stories are vivid, compelling snapshots of early 20^th century daily life in the Bohemian region of rural Czechoslovakia. In her old age, she looks back at her life and shares her most salient memories in letters to her son, Jára (pronounced Ya'-ra), a Czech expatriate in America. When I saw these letters, Tonča’s (pronounced Tone'-cha) conversational tone and colorful content pulled me into her world. With eagerness and trepidation, I made my way through her adventures and misadventures during Czechoslovakia’s perilous years of foreign domination and tyranny.

Tonča, through her letters, became our dear friend and stirred us to share her story with others.  Although she is not a celebrity or the type of hero that is glorified in history books, Tonča, nonetheless, is an everywoman heroine. Spunky and often naïve, she surprises herself with her unselfconscious art of survival during a time period when the odds were heavily weighted against her.