Set at first in late 19th century Eastern Europe, Fire in My Ears by Susan Schneider is a coming-of-age tale that begins with a beautiful young woman who makes a tragic far-reaching decision and the result is three generations of pain, disappointing and bitter struggle for happiness.

We follow Mary as her adoring father loves her perhaps too much, as she is nearly jilted by the handsome Avram, and as she brazenly makes her way by train through Europe. We continue with her across the English Channel and see her settle in the east end of London and then travel steerage with three young children to America. We find ourselves finally in a mid-century American suburb amid all of Mary's damaged and miserable descendants. Mary's story is told by her grown up granddaughter Sarah who learned all her grandmother's lessons from nightly tales entrusted to her when she was a nine-year-old child in their shared bedroom. The book alternates between those stories that sometimes delight but often terrify Sarah, and the daily events of her own life. She listens intently for clues to understand the mean-spirited love she observes in the three generations of her family that gather at her house every Sunday. This is a matriarch's tale of a haunting past, dangerous choices and terrible secrets. It explores relationships seen through the eyes of both an old woman and her precious grandchild. Mary's determination to save her favorite grandchild from her own unhappy existence is perhaps her only noble gesture and it elevates her to the heroic heights her benighted beauty never could.