When Raskin was a child in Milwaukee, she suffered both the frightening experience of sudden poverty in the Great Depression and the pain of discrimination directed against her because of her Jewish heritage. She retained, as many creative artists do, an unusually sensitive recollection of her childhood. She had cause, also, to sympathize with the plight of the disabled, although her own serious connectivetissue disorder was a secret from most people.

The situations of Judge Ford and the Theodorakis. family involve the most sensitive social issues in the novel, although Jake Wexler's Jewish background and Gracie's racist remarks about young Mrs. Hoo are also touched upon. Mrs. Hoo is a recent immigrant from China, exploited by her unsympathetic husband and unable to make friends because of her unfamiliarity with English. Raskin makes the reader aware of Mrs. Hoo's loneliness and her desire to be a good...