ROWING HOME explores how a talented, assimilated Jewish family living in Berlin in 1933 during the early rise of Nazism came to the decision to escape. What finally convinced them that it was time to leave? What confluence of events allowed them to do so? The novel follows the life of George Grossinger, a young college student and avid rower, his father, Werner, a newspaper editor, and mother, Frieda, an accomplished violinist, as their world ominously contracts. George finds that, even though a gifted rower, he will no longer be allowed to represent his country in competitions. George's attempts to evade these constrictions take him to London and Palestine, where he encounters worlds both frightening and open to possibilities.