The Immigrants is the beginning of a fully-conceived family saga which ends in 1985 with The Immigrant's Daughter.

Dan Lavette's financial ruin and the death of his partner Mark Levy and Anthony Cassala, their friend and banker, as well as of the elder Seldons, marks the end of an heroic era for the immigrants, whose great age of adventure is the foundation for the subsequent development of monopoly capitalism.

Second Generation (1979) chronicles a shift to more institutionalized, regulated ways of living life and doing business. Here, personal life, especially love, and individual commitment, rather than achievement or ambition, make people human. Barbara Lavette, Dan and Jean's daughter, now a student at Sarah Lawrence College, the female protagonist of the series, has a history which in many ways parallels Fast's own. Emerging from her adolescent frivolity, Barbara discovers herself politically as a volunteer relief worker during the longshore...