In this psychological portrait of a devout Jewish family bound together by the uneasy permutations of love, Deb Abramson relies not on sensationalist narrative but on a collection of the many small moments that glitter along the bumpy path of her life. As the good little girl in an unhappy family who hid her darker troubles, Abramson felt like she was living with another girl, a shadowy being who would neither leave nor make herself known. Her struggle to extricate herself from the "impermeable, immutable knot" of her family forms the heart of her dazzling book.