A World War II refugee family struggles to reach America in the debut novel from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Gentleman’s Agreement.
As World War II rips through Europe, the Vederles have found themselves in an impossible situation. In temporary exile in Switzerland, the Vederles are caught in a bureaucratic limbo, unable to return home and unable to move on to their dreamed-of life in America. Their sponsor in the United States, Vera Marriner, is embroiled in her own sort of conflict: an affair with Jasper Crown, a radio magnate and egotist of the highest order.
Herself the child of Russian socialists who found asylum in the United States, Laura Z. Hobson paints a stark contrast between the sheltered comfort of Vera’s life in New York and the tense, distant uncertainty of the complete strangers she hopes to rescue.
Laura Z. Hobson (1900–1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, she is best known for her novels Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), which deals with anti-Semitism in postwar America, and Consenting Adult (1975), about a mother coming to terms with her son’s homosexuality, which was based upon her own experiences with her own son. Hobson died in New York City in 1986.