"Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed. Eileen can't help but dream of a calmer life, in a better neighborhood. When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect...

In 1970 Queens, New York, Julian Twerski, now in seventh grade, struggles to write an essay as punishment for an act he did not commit, worries about Beverly, the girl he likes, prepares for his bar mitzvah, and tries to cope with the serious illness of one of his closest friends, Quentin.

It is the summer of 1977, and New York is suffering under a heat wave, a massive blackout, and a killer named the Son of Sam, while seventeen-year-old Cuban American Nora Lopez wants to escape her increasingly violent younger brother and worries about college applications and paying rent to spend her days working at the deli with the cute new Colombian boy and her nights at the disco dancing with her best friend Kathleen.