[In "The Immigrants"] Fast charts the rise of a poor boy—in this case second generation Italian-French immigrant Dan Lavette—to the top of corporate power and money and back down again….

"The Immigrants" moves fast. Several of the characters are stock and predictable, such as Dan's wife, the wealthy, beautiful, but frigid Jean. Yet the action drives along at such a pace that the reader is entertained by events, if not always by the characters involved in them:

Fast's novel is set in San Francisco during the first three decades of this century. It traces the lives of four families—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Chinese—and shows how the lives of these families are shaped by both their immigrant pasts and the values of the new land.

Dan himself is an American innocent—basically a good man who, only at the end, begins to understand himself and...