Gabriella Goliger's finely honed and exacting prose evokes the troubled lives of Ernst and Hannah Birnbaum, displaced German Jews who flee Hitler but cannot escape the shadow of the Holocaust. Their uprooted existence takes them from Europe to the Holy Land and eventually to Montreal, where they attempt to create a shelter for their children, Rachel and Avi, despite a strained marriage and all that they have lost. This new generation struggles with the inherited alienation that accompanies exile, striving to both protect and escape their vulnerable elders. Adopting the voices of various members of the immediate and extended family, Goliger poignantly explores the tense dialogue between present and past.