Dear gazhekwe, I'm eager for you to read it, too. While working on the book, I talked to someone who lived at Eloise [[her parents were on staff), and she stresses that she had a "normal" childhood [[although most of us couldn't loiter around the bakery with the expectation of getting a slice of freshly baked bread or a pastry, as she did).

I should stress that the book is about much more than Eloise. For Detroit history buffs, there's a lot about the city's development between 1900 and 1940, and how immigration [[and the auto industry) accelerated the changes. One of my favorite stats: From 1900 to 1910, the city's population nearly doubled, from 265,000 to 465,000. From 1910 to 1920, it did double, to a million. That's incredible to think about.

All this is the backdrop for the personal story about a family and its secret, and the forces that brought about that secrecy. My mom, the center of the book, went to Northern High [[class of '34), worked downtown at the old Boston Shoe Shop, then left her old neighborhood in the early 1950s for Northwest Detroit, moving to a street so new that part of it was still unpaved. She also reinvented herself, becoming an only child, as she told all her new friends.

I don't think she intended to keep her sister a secret forever, but that's what she ended up doing. Finding out how and why is the central focus of the book. Eloise is a part of the story, an important part, but not the focus.