"No one knows why Orthodox Jews settled in Memphis, but we saw our city as the Jerusalem of the South, our families part of a chain of Jewish Memphians that would extend into the future forever, as long and as far away as God in heaven."--BOOK JACKET. "When this didn't happen, it was the last thing we expected."--BOOK JACKET.

"This is the voice of the Ladies Auxiliary, the group of women at the heart of this close-knit community, and it is their voices that tell of how a carefully structured world begins to unravel with the arrival of Batsheva, young, beautiful, a convert, and a widow with a small child."--BOOK JACKET.

"Batsheva's unconfined joy in the rituals of her adopted religion - why does she sing so loudly in shul? - seems odd and even slightly improper to the ladies of the Auxiliary, who pride themselves on their modesty, domesticity, and the strictness of their observance. How can you lay claim to any of these virtues if you have such a thing as a tattoo? How can it be that Batsheva shows no interest in marrying again?

What sort of an influence is she having on the teenage girls who love to talk to her - and seem to tell her much more than they will tell their own mothers? And, most of all, is it really right that she is spending so much time with Yosef, apple of the ladies' eye, son of the rabbi, the great hope for the future?"--BOOK JACKET.