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In this first book of Sinoway-Barnett's trilogy, a Jewish family, fleeing Russia during the pogroms of the mid-1800s, finds homes in Britain and America. The first generation, Zelda and her young family, escape to Poland from anti-Semitism in the form of taxes and abuse. Further hardships compel Zelda's descendants to France, where they start a family business. Before WWI, the younger business partner, Ben, emigrates to America, and Leon, the elder, to England. Ben's son, David, after a stint in the US, returns to Britain and meets up with other cousins after the war. David and cousin Hymie take diverging paths, like Ben and Leon, with David adapting to life in a wheelchair after a combat injury, and Hymie committing suicide. The book ends with the Spanish flu's effect on the family.
Told with few chapter breaks, the story's format conveys the seamlessness of time amid abundant variables. David and Hymie's parallel with Ben and Leon, as well as the marriages and affairs that mirror each other, show history repeating itself with variation. Rustic Russian abodes, ghetto apartments in France, and, later, luxury London homes carry the story across many settings, creating a lush and complex narrative world. The varied socio-economic strata are balanced by familial bonds that transcend place and time, as shown in the letters characters write to each other and in the obstacles (death, arguments, finances) they overcome to stay together. The relational ruptures, too, temper the overall loving depiction. It is not a nostalgic tale but a realistic one, embracing both change and what remains the same.
Scenes of famished Russia, weddings, funerals, and hospital visits, which segue over the course of years, focus the story on the personal and domestic. Historic details, few and far between, are not the point. Rather, the spirit of the epoch is captured. The writing is personal and emotional, while the action is driven by romance, sex, and having babies. One of the most protracted scenes is of Hymie's wife, despite the doctor's orders, visiting him in the hospital after war injuries. The best and the worst—determined familial/marital love and trauma too deep to heal—converge in this riveting sequence. At other times, the story skirts around these two extremes, favoring the positive.
The writing delights in physical interactions. From this vantage point, historical events become relatable and memorable. Translated Yiddish spices the dialogue and flavors the text with remembrances of the homeland. Characters speak with distinctive voices, some chipper, some stoic, some bitter. The result of attention paid to the characters' dress and physical appearance is cinematic. Specific to a particular people at a particular time, the story achieves universality through its idiosyncrasy. The chapter breaks at the beginning and end of the story serve to prompt major transitions. Anti-Semitism begins the book and continues as a theme throughout.
The story's strength lies in the way the prose, conveyed through lively conversations and emergency situations, confronts this constant threat with aplomb. The characters develop more as a whole than any one of them does alone. As a unit, they face whatever threatens them together. A family's story of success despite constant challenges promises to continue in two more books.