The 1920s-era house on Holly Street had a wrap-around porch, lots of bedrooms, and a central hall with seven doors. It also had ghosts - the joys and pains and human dramas of its residents. Before long, James Morgan, its newest occupant, found himself wanting to learn about the seven other families who had called 501 Holly Street their home. If These Walls had Ears recounts his search to find them, and his discovery of America's social and cultural past through the stories of these real people's lives.

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Against a backdrop that spans from the Roaring Twenties through the Depression and world war, then from postwar optimism to end-of-century uncertainty, he uncovers tales of bankruptcy, family feuds, lawsuits, personal betrayal, fire, cancer, accidents, the grief of a loved one lost to AIDS. But amid the deep drama, there's also high comedy - teenage girls sneaking out bedroom windows to meet boyfriends, even a gaggle of men in dresses roller-skating through the living room.

In telling these stories, James Morgan brings us a story that is known to every one of us in every house in America - the ongoing search for a place that feels like home.

As the author discovered why people built, bought, and sold his house, he began to understand the bone-deep link between our homes and our dreams, the state of our relationships, and our hunger for roots and security. At middle life in middle America, James Morgan has written a book about universals of the human condition, about leaving home and coming back, and about finding the place you want to settle down in and stay, within four walls - and within yourself.