The author's father (Leon Lagnado) is a successful Egyptian businessman and dealer who loses everything after the fall of King Farouk and the rise of the Nasser dictatorship. As streets are renamed, neighborhoods of fellow Jews disbanded and the city purged of all foreign influence, the Lagnados must escape. The family is forced to abandon a life once marked by beauty and luxury to plunge into hardship and poverty as they take flight from Cairo to Paris to New York. This unforgettable memoir is a sweeping story of family, faith, tradition, tragedy and triumph.