by Claire Messud is a multigenerational family story that spans from the 1940s to the 2010s and is inspired by the author’s own family history. It follows the Cassar family, French Algerians who were expelled from the country when Algeria won its independence from France in 1962. The book begins in 1940 when the Nazis occupy France and Gaston Cassar, serving as a naval attaché to the French embassy in Greece, must choose whether to heed Charles de Gaulle’s call to arms or to return with his family home, to French Algeria. The decision he makes will haunt his family history down through the decades, as does the legacy of colonialism, as various members of the Cassar family try to find a sense of home.