"There was a time when the family Künstler lived in the fairy-tale city of Vienna. Circumstances transformed that fairy tale into a nightmare, and in 1939 the Künstlers found their way out of Vienna and into a new fairy tale: Los Angeles, California, United States of America. An ill-timed visit forces twentysomething New Yorker Julian to shelter in place in Venice Beach with his glamorous and eccentric ninety-three-year-old grandmother, Mamie Künstler,...

A rope passed down through the generations frames an African American family's story as they journey north during the time of the Great Migration.

From 1915 to 1970, roughly six million African-American citizens fled the South for improved lives in northern and western America. Comparing this rarely discussed exodus to other great migrations in history while culling data from interviews and historical records, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the decades-long journey that greatly altered the cultural landscape of America.