This spirited novel paints the colorful characters in my Jewish generational family in the shtetl, Skalat, Austria, in Galicia from the 1890s and on. This is their story. It reveals their daily fight to handle poverty, fears, their private neuroses and anti-Semitism which pervades their days. Ever battling to eke out a living, they still fall romantically and lustily in love, marry, and have children. Their early innocence is touching and human. Some remain stalwart defending their religious beliefs, while others grow intellectually, attending secret meetings in the woods, joining a new...