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"Family is not an important thing. It is everything." This is the mantra of the Gurin family until a dark secret from the past is revealed driving their relationships to the crossroads of tragedy. While having their usual family dinner, without warning, Sophie brutally assaults Frank, her husband. Her violent behavior is witnessed by her two daughters, Addie, six and Mary, eight, and her mother, Irina, an immigrant from Poznan, Poland. Committed to a hospital, Sophie delves into painful flashbacks and dreams that involve a faceless man abusing a child. It isn't until some months later that she discovers through therapy that the little girl is her. Her shame about being abused forces her to keep it a secret from her family. The same is true for the humiliation she suffers about being a patient in a psychiatric unit for nearly a year. Sophie concocts a risky fictional account explaining her breakdown and hospitalization and demands that her mother and husband participate in this deception because she's fearful the truth would forever change the love her daughters feel for her. Told from multiple points of view, the story takes place in Chicago in 1965, and spans twenty years. Delving into the relationships of the Gurin women as mothers and daughters, the reader experiences the tender undersides of their love as well as the sharp edges which nearly destroy them. The heart of this book touches on the genuine compassion mothers and daughters need to be capable of when their disappointments go beyond what appears to be unforgivable.
