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A moving memoir following the Glass siblings throughout the course of the 20th century exploring assimilation, identity and home, the book is the story and secrets of a 20th century Jewish family. After her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she'd never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America, defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end, yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala's experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about. Hadley found a shoebox filled with her grandmother's treasured belongings and started a decade-long quest to find out their haunting significance and dig deep into the extraordinary lives of Sala and her three brothers. The search takes Hadley from Picasso's archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island and to Auschwitz. Hadley brings to life Alex's past as a fashion couturier and friend of Dior and Chagall. Trusting and brave Jacques, a fierce patriot for his adopted country and the brilliant Henri who hid in occupied France - each of them made extraordinary bids for survival during WWII. Alongside her great-uncles' extraordinary acts of courage in Vichy France, Hadley discovers her grandmother's equally heroic but more private form of female self-sacrifice. At the same time the book is an acute examination of the roots, tropes and persistence of anti-Semitism. A brave and thrilling almost detective story. 448pp, illus. Family tree.