For 50 years, Eleanor Rit­ter’s moth­er Rose has refused to talk about how she sur­vived the Holo­caust in Poland and end­ed up in New Jer­sey. But now, just as Rose breaks her hip and starts speak­ing in long-for­got­ten Pol­ish, Eleanor learns that the par­ents of her nine-year-old son’s new friend are Pol­ish Catholics, born and raised in that coun­try. Eleanor starts dig­ging into both fam­i­lies’ sto­ries, jeop­ar­diz­ing her already shaky rela­tion­ships with her moth­er, her hus­band, and her chil­dren, even as her obses­sion push­es her to con­front the exis­ten­tial ques­tions of Amer­i­can Jews – indeed, of any group that has faced his­tor­i­cal per­se­cu­tion: How many gen­er­a­tions does guilt car­ry on? What did your grand­par­ents do to my grandparents?