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Those threads are evident throughout the book. In the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Rebecca鈥檚 family flees Turkey in 1925 and moves to its former home country of Spain, only to find that they鈥檙e not truly welcome there. Rebecca starts a business as a seamstress, but has to operate under a less Jewish-sounding name. She also discovers, after giving birth to two sons, that her children aren鈥檛 granted Spanish citizenship even though they鈥檝e been born in the country. After her first husband dies at the end of the decade, her family sets her up a few years later with a man from Turkey who has American citizenship. The two meet up in Cuba to get to know each other over a whirlwind holiday, and then settle in New York in 1934, where Rebecca鈥檚 sons join them and she becomes stepmother to Luna, her new husband鈥檚 daughter from his first marriage. It鈥檚 a wide-ranging, epic tale of a family moving and resettling across borders in times of global strife, and all of it is based on the real-life saga of Graver鈥檚 own family.

While there are abundant Jewish diaspora novels, far more of them tell the story of Ashkenazi Jewish families than of Sephardic ones like Graver鈥檚, in part because there are significantly fewer Sephardic than Ashkenazi Jews in this country. The terms refer to the countries of origin for Jewish immigrants. Ashkenazi Jews come from eastern or central Europe, whereas Sephardic Jews hail from Spain and speak a Judeo-Spanish language called Ladino (kantika is the Ladino word for 鈥渟ong鈥�).听

Included throughout the book are photos of the characters鈥� real-life counterparts, their shifting appearances documenting the family鈥檚 efforts to fit in wherever it happened to be living. 鈥淲hen I was using photos of my grandmother,鈥� Graver said, 鈥渟he can look Turkish, she can look French, she can look Spanish. She changes a lot.鈥澨�

It鈥檚 a shapeshifting performance that also reflects Rebecca鈥檚 keen sense of glamour and her own beauty, which becomes a source of conflict with Luna, who emerges as a foil character. Luna, who has cerebral palsy, tends to withdraw in a world that reacts negatively to her appearance. And little wonder, given her family鈥檚 acceptance of the 1940s-era conventional wisdom that Luna鈥檚 disability necessitates living a constrained life. But Rebecca rejects this notion and patiently works with Luna to help her become more physically independent. Luna at times resents the constant pushing, but also recognizes that her life has vastly improved because of it. The two characters are keen observers of each other鈥檚 faults, but as Graver points out, they鈥檙e very similar as well. Both are shrewd, motivated survivors, pushing back against a culture that constantly tries to assign them identities that don鈥檛 fit. Their relationship ultimately forms the emotional heart of the book鈥攁 story about mothers and daughters connecting in the midst of grief, migration, and change, and one that, unfortunately, remains powerfully resonant today as humans continue to be forced to leave home for safer lands.