Description
For 50 years, Eleanor Ritter's mother Rose has refused to talk about how she survived the Holocaust in Poland and ended up in New Jersey. But now ' just as Rose breaks her hip and starts speaking in long-forgotten Polish ' Eleanor learns that the parents of her nine-year-old son's new friend are Polish Catholics, born and raised in that country. Eleanor starts digging into both families' stories, jeopardizing her already shaky relationships with her mother, her husband, and her children, even as her obsession pushes her to confront the existential questions of American Jews ' indeed, of any group that has faced historical persecution: How many generations does guilt carry on? What did your grandparents do to my grandparents?
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After breaking her hip in a serious accident, Eleanor Ritter's mother, Rose, a Holocaust survivor now living in New Jersey, suddenly starts talking about her harrowing childhood in Poland and the taboo subjects she has refused to discuss for half a century -- even speaking in long-forgotten Polish. Around the same time, Eleanor learns that the parents of her nine-year-old son's soccer teammate, Tadek, are Catholics from Poland. As Eleanor becomes fixated with digging into the histories of both her mother and Tadek's family, her obsession strains her already difficult relationship with Rose, as well as her marriage to Nick, an IT technician who is himself caught up in preparing for the feared Y2K turn of the millennium. Eleanor starts flirting heavily with the soccer coach, ignoring her twelve-year-old daughter's growing rebellion and her son's misery when he becomes the team pariah for badly messing up several games. Meanwhile, the "sure-fire" tech stock that Eleanor bought behind Nick's back is losingmoney. Even as her quest nourishes an odd friendship with Tadek's mother, it forces Eleanor to face the unavoidable questions: How many generations does guilt carry on? What did your grandparents do to my grandparents?
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