First published 2021
Deborah Feldman begins again at twenty-three. She packs her young son and their belongings and leaves her Satmar community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn behind. The oppression and isolation of her Hasidic upbringing no longer serve her vision of a better life. Now she faces the world as a single mother and religious refugee, searching for where she truly belongs. Her journey starts in New York as an independent woman learning to navigate unfamiliar territory. The search expands across America and eventually takes her through Europe, where she traces her grandmother's Holocaust experiences. Each destination brings her closer to understanding herself and what home really means. Through travels that span continents and generations, Feldman examines how memory shapes us and how trauma passes between families. Her exploration becomes a reckoning with her past and a reconciliation with her place in the world.
Genres: family-life, autobiography, memoir, non-fiction, biography-memoir, jewish
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, reckoning-with-the-past
Setting: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, America, Europe
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
368 pages · Paperback · Plume
Content warnings: abuse