In this lit­er­ary thriller, the ques­tion is posed: who packs the suit­case we car­ry from birth? The answer is woven into the mys­tery about a mother’s sui­cide, some con­test­ed land and a love affair between a Ger­man and a Jew weighed down by the bag­gage of history.

A suc­cess­ful real estate bro­ker with a high­ly lucra­tive client who, like her par­ents, is a Holo­caust sur­vivor, Han­nah was born in a Ger­man DP camp, the only child of Rokhl and the late Barak. One day, she arrives at her mother’s but Rokhl is gone, leav­ing behind a mys­ti­fy­ing note that reads: I am not her. Notes are all the guid­ance Han­nah has ever received from a lacon­ic moth­er. The night before her dis­ap­pear­ance, Han­nah had dis­closed she must trav­el to Ger­many on busi­ness. Rokhl fierce­ly warned, ​‘over my dead body.’ Three days lat­er, Han­nah locates her moth­er in the morgue. Secret­ed away wait­ing for Han­nah to dis­cov­er is a con­fes­sion­al let­ter, Rokhl’s sto­ry shared at last, about a life filled with loss, betray­al, and guilt.