This beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten nov­el, span­ning from the 1920s to the present day, tells the sto­ry of sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of a large Jew­ish fam­i­ly in Cal­i­for­nia. The nar­ra­tive alter­nates between the cur­rent life of Elaine Green­stein, who is now in her 80’s, and her past, begin­ning with her child­hood in a sub­urb of Los Ange­les. Elaine’s twin, Bar­bara, is her best friend and foe. Oppo­site in tem­pera­ment, Bar­bara is the vain­er, fun seek­ing, impul­sive sis­ter, while Elaine is more seri­ous, brainy, and mind­ful. We read about close yet com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships between chil­dren, par­ents, and grand­par­ents, aunts, and nieces. We learn about the hard­ships of life in the old coun­try and immi­gra­tion to Amer­i­ca. We dis­cov­er that some fam­i­ly sto­ries are often told while oth­ers are kept hid­den. The twins vie for their mother’s love and for a neigh­bor­hood boy. When Bar­bara goes miss­ing at age eigh­teen, this tale evolves into a mys­tery whose solu­tion can only be par­tial­ly solved at the end. The author explores what it takes to ful­fill one’s per­son­al vision and describes how it feels to look back on a long life’s expe­ri­ences. Stein­berg paints the locales vivid­ly and the sto­ry and dia­logue flow well. This inter­est­ing and easy read opens up a view on Jew­ish life in Cal­i­for­nia before and after World War II.