Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antisemitism, child loss, infertility, xenophobia, wartime violence, genocide, and ableism.

The novel shows how one family adapts to the consequences of both personal choices and overwhelming historical forces in their search for home. Rebecca Cohen’s understanding of home changes as she and her relatives are repeatedly displaced over the course of the story. As a young girl, the protagonist never imagines that she will leave Constantinople. Elizabeth Graver conveys this sense of permanence in the description of Rebecca’s childhood home: “Their house has three stories and is made of stone, which does not burn” (2). She describes her family in similar language, highlighting that her early understanding of home and family is tied to a permanent physical structure—namely, one built of strong, stable stone: “Her family, especially her father, is from here the way the paving stones are from here, drawn from the very earth” (32). She remains certain that the Cohens will stay even when World War I uproots the lives of the people around them, such as her best friend, Lika. Ultimately, the Cohens are displaced by a range of factors, including Alberto’s mistakes with his business and the Turkish government’s conscription of young men.