A novel about Mendel Singer, a poor, pious Jewish schoolteacher in a small Russian village in the early twentieth century. His life is hard enough, with a sickly youngest child and restless older sons, and then the family emigrates to New York in search of a better future. There, new losses test his faith and his patience. Modelled loosely on the biblical Job, the book is a compassionate story of suffering, doubt and endurance, told in clear and simple language.