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Anca Vlasopolos writes movingly of the hyphenated, ambiguous identities assumed by displaced people; the purgatory in which immigrants await transfer to another country; the mysterious nostalgia for places and events dimly recalled. Throughout, she describes the constant search for a place truly to call home. Vlasopolos chronicles years of limbo in Brussels and Paris as well as her settlement in Detroit, Michigan, where she will never feel completely at home. Even the country of her birth, with its endemic anti-Semitism and xenophobia, does not serve as a home or even match the scenes of her nostalgic longing.

The true heroine of the story is Vlasopolos's mother, an Auschwitz survivor who raised young Anca herself after the death of her husband, a Greek political dissident. This extraordinary woman's spirit, sharp intelligence, sense of humor, and flair for fashioning the appearance of opulence in the face of poverty provide some of the most arresting moments in the book. The deep attachment and strong mutual support between mother and daughter come through clearly in Vlasopolos's moving tribute.

Vividly describing the smells and tastes of delicate pastries and salmon caviar and cagey exertions to hide rare indulgences from the authorities; her accidental discovery ofher Jewish identity and the euphemisms to cover the fact of her father's death; a meeting of the Communists' censorship committee and her difficulties in obtaining an American library card -- Vlasopolos has composed an extraordinary and profound addition to the literature of exile.