In this deeply affecting memoir (his first published book), nonagenarian Harry Bernstein evokes with clarity and grace his impoverished childhood in pre-WWI England, a vanished world of grinding hardship and deprivation aggravated even further by ignorance and prejudice. Bernstein zooms in on the small mill town of Stockport, where he and his family lived on the "Jewish side" of the street, divided from their neighbors by an "invisible wall" as effective as any tangible barrier. Yet, in spite of this impenetrable social segregation and against all odds, the author's older sister falls in love with a Christian from across the street, sparking a family crisis as tragic in its own way as Romeo and Juliet.