Everything grows in the suburbs. Grass. Trees. Flowers. Ugly ideas. Take, for example, anti-Semitism.Not since the 1947 best-seller Gentleman's Agreement has a novel so intimately portrayed the ugly face of American anti-Semitism:Nora Miller, a nominal Jew, fits right into her suburban town. She buys upscale food, chauffeurs her two children to sports' teams, plays tennis and goes sailing with her church-going friends. Her perfectly ordinary life unravels one May morning when she discovers a swastika carved on her lawn. Enraged, Nora seeks clues to what prompted the hate crime. She disguises her identity and attends some meetings of the neighborhood neo-Nazis known as the American Clan. As a consequence, her husband disappears from a rally in the park and her idyllic world shatters.In her quest to find Harvey Miller, Nora faces official indifference and the betrayal of friends, all while coping with her traumatized teenage daughter and son. Set in the 1970s, the fast-paced thriller moves rapidly from a tranquil suburban world to one of anti-government conspiracies, insurrection and domestic terrorism as Nora struggles to come to grips with a new reality. What she discovers will shock and dismay readers.
