title: Decades
author: Kaye, Elisabeth
description: On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Sam Gold gathers his extended family together at his Maryland estate to celebrate the arrival of the new millennium. Sam is a scion of the du Roche family, a large clan spread over two continents which has witnessed many of the twentieth century’s most important events. For each decade, members of the family have stories to tell. One wealthy socialite bears a child to a soldier killed in the Great War; many serve in Europe and the Pacific during the next war, and one returns with a foreign bride; one marries into English nobility; many are separated by time or circumstance and meet again years later. As time goes on, the family stretches from Ireland to America to England and back again. The du Roches’ story encompasses the loves, ambitions, and losses of a twentieth century American family.