A brilliant and moving evocation of the rhythms of life (and the darker shadows below it) in a working-class quarter of the worlds most fascinating and divided city. In the tradition of the literature of place perfected by such expatriate writers as M. F. K. Fisher and Isak Dinesen, Adina Hoffmans House of Windows compellingly evokes Jerusalem through the prism of the neighborhood where she has lived for eight years since moving from the United States. In a series of interlocking sketches and intimate portraits of the inhabitants of Musrara, a neighborhood on the border of the western (Jewish) and eastern (Arab) sides of the citya Sephardic grocer, an aging civil servant, a Palestinian gardener, a nosy mother of tenHoffman constructs an intimate view of Jerusalem life that will be a revelation to American readers bombarded with politics and headlines. By focusing on the day-to-day pace of existence in this close-knit community, she provides a rich, precise, and refreshingly honest portrait of a city often reduced to clicheand takes in the larger question of identity and exile that haunts Jews and Palestinians alike.