Two fam­i­lies share the spot­light in Elyce Wak­er­man’s nov­el A Tale of Two Cit­i­zens: the Himel­baums of Poland and the Browns of Iowa. The con­sum­ma­tion of a youth­ful pas­sion makes it nec­es­sary for Har­ry Himel­baum to enter the Unit­ed States ille­gal­ly, even as immi­gra­tion offi­cer Will Brown remains ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing Amer­i­ca safe from a flood of for­eign influ­ence. But Har­ry and Will are con­nect­ed by more than oppo­site ends of the immi­gra­tion divide: they share as well a roman­tic attrac­tion to the same woman. Har­ry tries to estab­lish him­self and build a life in Amer­i­ca, but he increas­ing­ly sus­pects that he is under the sur­veil­lance of the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment. Would they real­ly deport him? Back to Poland? In 1939?