“This is a book about how the past lives in us, even as we resist it or are unaware of it. Rabinowitz is a storyteller of rare verve and insight, offering us delight, discovery, and an honest account of joy and pain.”

—David W. Blight,

Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Frederick Douglass

“Rabinowitz is a historian of the heart who uses ordinary objects to tell the story of his family.”

—Roger Rosenblatt, author of Making Toast: A Family Story

Belknap Press | hup.harvard.edu