With the uncanny grace and sure hand of a master, Thomas Trebitsch Parker offers an indelible rendering of the woman caught between the Old World and the gleaming promise of post-war America. As the novel opens it is 1927, and Anna is 10 years old. The good citizens of Vienna assiduously avoid thinking about the Nazi threat, despite ominous portents of things to come. Anna's mother, a dancer and fierce iconoclast, and her father, a vainglorious writer, are supremely self-absorbed and leave Anna to her own devices. Having anointed themselves the artists of the household, they are astounded...