In Kvetch: One Bitch of a Life, American journalist Greta Beigel looks back sometimes in horror, often with humor at dysfunctional Jewish family life lived under the umbrella of apartheid in South Africa, circa the 1960s. While affording a rare look at Orthodox Jewry's response to events of that shameful era, Kvetch also celebrates the rituals, customs-and delicious foods-associated with such a rich cultural heritage. The memoir also delivers an insider's perspective on another rarefied stratum: the world of musical prodigies, and in particular shines a spotlight on the machinations of the author's superambitious matriarch. With a nod at mores & marriage, Johburg-style, the story soon migrates to Southern California where Beigel, studying on a piano scholarship, morphs from performer to music scribe. And later as staff writer for the Los Angeles Times interviews many greats of the classical music firmament. Despite the highs, a dark and ugly current courses throughout. Kvetch: One Bitch of a Life tracks the toll of ongoing emotional and sexual familial abuse on this talented young woman who over the decades will crisscross the globe desperately seeking a type of spiritual/emotional transformation.