Blood and Village: Two Lives, 1897-1991

At once a mystery of detection, a family history, and a rite of passage, Blood and Village traces the lives of the author’s parents from the closing years of the 19th century in a small South German town to the New York neighborhoods where they raised their family. Why did they leave their bucolic village, the author asks, why them and so few others? In what sense did the village die after they left? And in having left, why did the village still have such a hold over them all their lives? I...