This immi­grant sto­ry, a pre­quel to Gerber’s award win­ning nov­el, The King­dom of Brook­lyn, is about three gen­er­a­tions of a Jew­ish fam­i­ly, focus­ing on the expe­ri­ences and emo­tions of the women. Two sis­ters, Rachel and Rose, arrived on the Low­er East Side from Poland in 1906 and the tale con­tin­ues with Rachel’s three daugh­ters from her two hus­bands. Ava, Muset­ta, and Gil­da must share very cramped quar­ters in Brook­lyn. The times are full of hard­ships, tragedy, and sur­vival and Ger­ber describes how the women and the men in their lives react to what life brings each of them. The women’s per­son­al­i­ties are all strong but very dif­fer­ent from each oth­er and their inter­ac­tions seem very real. The author doesn’t hold back on depict­ing emo­tions such as the pain caused by the pet­ti­ness of sib­ling rival­ry; the way a bad dis­po­si­tion can col­or one’s life; self­less­ness and self­ish­ness; parental love and emo­tion­al abuse. Reli­gious obser­vance, a sub­ject of dis­agree­ment, is bare­ly tol­er­at­ed. World War II is cov­ered as some of the men go off to fight and we read about the immi­grants’ patri­o­tism to their adopt­ed coun­try. I found this book to be a quick, enjoy­able read, notable for its honesty.