A conflict breaks out between liberal and orthodox Jews in a summer resort in New York State. The liberals live in the town while the orthodox are summer tourists who are led by a hardline rabbi. By the author of The Family Markowitz.

"Against the vibrant and liberated backdrop of 1970's San Francisco, a husband and wife--both Jewish immigrants indelibly traumatized by their childhoods in Nazi Germany--face the turbulence of an increasingly sterile marriage. Saul, an emotionally withdrawn scientist, escapes into New Age mysticism with Shivaya, a self-styled clairvoyant Danish healer. Gerda drifts in and out of psychiatric care as her loosening grip on reality leaves its mark on...

"As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, Orly has an idyllic childhood filled with music. Her father plays the viola in the Philharmonic, her mother is a well-regarded opera singer, her beloved and charismatic older brother holds the neighborhood in his thrall, and most of her eccentric and wonderful extended family live within the city limits. Only vaguely aware of Hitler's rise or how definitive her Jewish heritage will become to her...