August 1933: a sweltering Toronto night. At Christie Pits Park, during the ninth inning of an amateur-league softball game, four youths unfurl a white sheet emblazoned with a large black Swastika, lift their arms and shout, “Heil Hitler!” Within seconds, a group of Jewish youths charge in a struggle to capture the flag, setting off a four-hour race riot, involving fifteen thousand people and injuring hundreds.

Tulchinsky takes us inside the life of one immigrant Jewish family— the Lapinskys, from the pivotal moment of the riots, through the years of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, World War II and post-war era 1950s. A stunning, engaging and moving fictional treatment of a defining moment for a family, a city and a nation struggling with ideas of freedom, tolerance and identity in a world broken by war.