Dina and Julia first meet at a sur­gi­cal con­ven­tion and bond over frus­tra­tions with their hus­bands’ demand­ing sched­ules. But geog­ra­phy, time, and grow­ing fam­i­lies make main­tain­ing their friend­ship dif­fi­cult and their rela­tion­ship even­tu­al­ly falls apart. One of them is left to won­der why; the oth­er has a secret. But nei­ther of them knows that deci­sions made by fam­i­ly mem­bers decades ear­li­er have set them on a col­li­sion course.

Years after their friend­ship ends, Julia gets word that her daugh­ter has sud­den­ly become seri­ous­ly ill — and she and Dina must decide whether they can face the his­to­ry that now unites them and muster the matu­ri­ty to res­cue their emo­tion­al­ly tat­tered families.

A sweep­ing saga that fol­lows gen­er­a­tions from a shtetl in Odessa to the com­forts of Scars­dale, an upris­ing in Glas­gow to servi­tude in the Caribbean, and a trek through the Alps to a dis­placed per­sons camp in Italy, The Con­ven­tion of Wives is a sto­ry about the ever-evolv­ing messi­ness of friend­ship and mar­riage, and the won­der of survival.