Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"It's long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born...that at some point each year the dead will come home," Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother's stories recalled one true home: the family farm left behind in Latvia, where, during WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother's sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see each other again for more than 50 years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited.

When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother's belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija's survival through years as a refugee. Weaving these two parts of the family story together in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she gives us a profound and cathartic account of loss, survival, resilience, and love.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Verzemnieks's impressive work examines the refugee history of her grandmother's family with sensitivity and compassion. During World War II, her grandmother Livija is married, her husband fighting as a Latvian conscript, with one young daughter and a son born just days before violence consumes the capital city of Riga. Livija flees with both children and becomes one of the many war refugees seeking safety in the European countryside. Ultimately reunited with her husband, Livija and their now three children spend years in a refugee camp before finally receiving sponsorship in Tacoma and emigrating to the United States. Through her visits to Latvia, the author develops and strengthens bonds with an extended family she clearly relishes. The trips don't erase the suffering and anguish of the past, but they do offer hope of reconciliation and forgiveness. VERDICT For readers looking for parallels between historic and current events. Though Syria isn't mentioned, this book could have been written about what's happening today, rather than more than 70 years ago. (Memoir, 4/11/17; ow.ly/liks30c0Myo)-Rachael Dreyer, Eberly Family Special Collections Lib., Pennsylvania State Univ. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Upon a visit to her ancestral Latvia, Verzemnieks, who teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa, vividly imagines the dramatic youth of her grandmother Livija, a farm girl. Verzemnieks follows the desperate flight of Livija and her two small children to a refugee camp in 1944, with her husband at war on the Russian front. Upon settling later into the Latvian community of Tacoma, Wash., Verzemnieks's grandparents reunite, have children and grandchildren, and raise the author following her parents' divorce; their presence alone helps keep their memories of their beloved homeland alive for the curious girl. "Words can become as real as anything we see with our eyes or feel with these hands," Verzemnieks writes. She describes how refugees ousted from their lands form the collective bond of community in their adopted countries. By combining the memories of Livija and her sister, Ausma, with her own powerful impressions of Latvia, Verzemnieks has created a stirring family saga of exiles rich with compassion, loss, perseverance, myth, superstition, and courage. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

The dead return to visit the living, according to Latvian folklore. But in this elegiac book, it is author Verzemnieks who returns to the land her grandmother fled during WWII to explore the lives that were torn apart during those years. After the death of her grandmother, who raised her from a young age, Verzemnieks journeys back to Latvia, visiting with her grandmother's sister. The sisters' paths diverged when they were young and the war came to their village, her grandmother eventually making her way to the U.S. while her sister was exiled to Siberia. Slowly, Verzemnieks uncovers their stories, discovering the meaning behind the silence. Her grandmother's agonizing years waiting in a camp, while the U.S. debated whether to accept refugees, strike an especially resonant chord. Beyond the story of her own family, Verzemnieks offers a moving history of the Latvian people, oppressed for centuries, and their disappearing way of life. Spellbinding and poetic, this is a moving tribute to the enduring promise of home.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

The Latvian world of her grandmother draws the writer, an American, back to the old country to re-create a vanished life between farm and war.In her striking debut memoir, Verzemnieks (Creative Nonfiction/Univ. of Iowa), winner of a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, refashions the early life of her deceased grandmother Livija, who was born and raised on a farm in Gulbene, in eastern Latvia. She left her hometown to work in Riga as a bookkeeper and was subsequently caught up in the Soviet invasion and takeover of her country in World War II. Livija then left her homeland and came to the United States, where she was reunited with her soldier husband, who had been demobilized from the Latvian Legion, which was actually fighting for Nazi Germany against Russia. Livija and her family settled into the Latvian community of the former mill town of Tacoma, Washington. There, they raised their granddaughter, the author, after her parents got divorced and underwent mysterious crises, leaving the child in their care. The author became keenly aware of all aspects of the life Livija left behind, so much so that years later, when she actually visited her grandmother's homestead and grew friendly with her great-aunt, she was able to re-create in great detail this vanished life. Verzemnieks beautifully evokes the sympathy between Livija and her young granddaughter and the subsequent acquaintance between the author, now grown and married herself, and her great-aunt, who reluctantly revealed painful episodes of her past, such as the day the Russians arrived at the end of the war, ransacked the farmhouse, and deported her sister to a labor camp in Siberia. With fluidity and nuance, the author smoothly incorporates Latvian history into her narrative as well as the quietly buried sins of the past, such as the Latvian men's forced conscription to fight on the German side. A highly polished memoir of enormous heart. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.