Our narrator gets caught ostensibly smuggling someone into Germany illegally. It is during conversations with an appointed psychologist that she recounts her family history, starting with her great-grandfather, Samuel Kohanim. The story begins in Prussia (now Poland) early in the 20th century, where a Jewish family enjoys an idyllic life near the Vistula river - except for the fact that Samuel has no male heir. Instead, he has seven daughters, for whom he worries about finding suitable husbands. As the life stories of the family members unfold, the events that form the history of the twentieth century are described from the points of view of observers or participants in letters and a well-crafted narrative. Spurned would-be lovers, sexual scandal, revenge, rags to fame, women finding their independence, and murder all with the changes occurring in Europe as a back drop. 300 pages.