This his­tor­i­cal nov­el, set in 1943, tells the par­al­lel sto­ries of two very dif­fer­ent men. Jacob Perl­man is a Jew­ish doc­tor in Vien­na who is forced to flee when the Nazis take over his city. Roo­sevelt Turn­er is a poor black migrant work­er from Gainesville, Flori­da who has been trau­ma­tized by the hor­rif­ic loss of his fam­i­ly and is slow­ly mak­ing his way north, away from the Jim Crow South. Both men dream of get­ting to Pitts­burgh, a place that may save them from their night­mar­ish lives. World War II is rag­ing and Pitts­burgh offers oppor­tu­ni­ties for black labor­ers and for immi­grants, if only they can get there. Even­tu­al­ly the two men’s paths meet and their lives become enmeshed in a way they nev­er could have imag­ined. This sto­ry about suf­fer­ing, sur­vival, hero­ism, racism, the bond between blacks and Jews, the ​“Amer­i­can Dream,” and more con­tains fas­ci­nat­ing details about the begin­nings of the civ­il rights move­ment, the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty of Sosua in the Domini­can Repub­lic, and about wartime indus­try in Pitts­burgh. Although at times the nar­ra­tive was a bit repet­i­tive, the descrip­tions were vivid and informative.The jux­ta­po­si­tion of these two pro­tag­o­nists with com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent back­grounds was unique. This book is suit­able for young adults too.