Again, as in Anya and Time in Its Flight, Schaeffer finds a "radiance beneath" the continuity of family--here, in a random swatch of small destinies, tentative directions, and brave accommodations in an emigrant Jewish family from the late 19th century to a reflective present. Much of the story filters through the mind of old Esheal Luria--who, in an eyeblink, can remember generations of gliding, hurrying mothers and daughters or see the same women as cemetery stones. And for Esheal this totality of life and death goes back to a vision of his boyhood: his widowed mother leaving for America with her new husband and daughters, beating Esheal's hands away from the departing wagon: "Again and again, she lifted the spoon, beating his hands." Young Esheal is then taken in by the mysterious village 0 "witch," the "zenshina," a healer, who teaches him letters and forces him to study a simple onion, a symbol of the universe of living and not-living, which encloses all places, all time, all persons. But Esheal will reach America and he will become a pharmacist, a good man, a healer, a husband to beautiful Lily Romanoff--who bears him three daughters. Still, pain and death will dog him: he will be unjustly accused of poisoning a child; the Romanoffs, who turn to him in midnight crises of illness, death, and money, never admit him to blood membership; and after the death of tiny daughter Celia, he senses "the villainy loose in the world" and dangerously, jealously threatens his family-possessed wife--which leads to permanent separation and the hurtful absence of his daughters. Finally, then, alone and near death, Esheal has a dream-vision of the zenshina, who tempts him with an escape from the march of generations, a chance to be swept away out of memory; but he refuses, for family is, being human, all he knows. Throughout the narrative and brief entries by family members, there's the splat of domestic gossip, the presence of ebullient, bright, or silly women, the words of wise men and fools, whirls of feasts and dancing, sickbed watches, the sights, smells, and sounds of emigrant Manhattan. And, above all, Schaeffer gives pathos and stature to imperfect members of a family and grandeur to humble continuity... --Kirkus Reviews.