If you knew that you would experience significant love just once in your life, would you want these years at the beginning, or at the end?At the beginning of the twentieth century Stefan Blau flees Burgdorf, a small town in Germany, and comes to America in search of the vision that he has dreamed of every night. The novel closes nearly a century later with Stefan's granddaughter, Emma, and the legacy of his dream; a once-grand house filled with the hidden truths of inhabitants both past and present. With clear-eyed characterisation and lyrical prose, Ursula Hegi creates a fascinating portrait of immigrants in a foreign land: their dreams and disappointments; the challenges of assimilation; the frailty of language; the love that bonds generations - and the cultural wedges that drive them apart. Read Less