Myron Adler is a butcher and Faye, his pretentious wife, leads a fantasy life filled with high-class suitors. Through the 1940s and '50s the Adlers raise two sons, who are kept off-balance and cautious -- unsure when sweetness will instantly turn bitter or a peaceful Sunday dinner will erupt into brutal violence.With candor and precision, Skloot captures the nuances of second-generation immigrant life as well as the pulse of mid-century Brooklyn -- where Mafia heavies, baseball's Dodgers, the Mad Bomber, and two- bit boxers populate a world the Adler brothers seem destined to inherit.