Growing up in a strictly Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn in the 1950s, Rose Weiss and her younger sister, Pearl, are very close, until Rose, always the rebel (reading Anna Karenina with a flashlight under the covers), finally leaves home to escape an arranged marriage, eventually becoming a celebrated photographer. Pearl follows the rules as docile daughter, dutiful wife, and breadwinner, working so that her husband can study the Talmud. But things do not turn out as planned for either sister, and in the next generation, Pearl’s daughter, Rivka, runs away from her pious husband to find her artist aunt, while Rose’s daughter finds her mother’s family. Readers familiar with Yiddish will love the wry idiom (What else do you want already?), but the intense personal drama will reach a wide audience across ethnicity. Returning to her community after 40 years, Rose finds that nothing has changed—neither the prejudice nor the caring love, if you are one of them. The oppressive traditions seem both ludicrous and cruel, yet freedom can bring its own brutality and messes. The political-activist husband fights for equality—except for his wife. The secrets hold you to the very end, when the sisters confront the universal question: Whose memory is true to what really happened?
