Do not assume that all immigrants are the same or that this is a tale in which the villians and the heroes are set apart. Family stories are not morality plays.. writes Hedy, the narrator of this extranordinary saga that follows the Gruenbaum family for five generations from a Polish shtetl in a New York tenement, and then--with the success of their garment factory--to Park Avenue. But the way to wealth and status if paved with uncomfortable choices, and as the family fortune is built, the Gruenbaums are swept away from their heritage and into the mainstream; Lovely Flora, who despite her parents' warnings marries the incredibly handsome Frank and pays an unexpected price; Sharon, called Shari Lee, who runs away to join a jazz band and leaves her father to rage at God; and finally Flora's daughter Hedy, inheritor of sins and secrets, who undertakes her own dangerous journey to reconcile her family's history and her wounded heart.

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