Summary

In Chapter 1.0, the novel begins the protagonist’s grandfather, Isaac Reznikoff, a Jewish man from Belarus who immigrates to the United States in the early 1900s. At Ellis Island, due to a misunderstanding, he is given the name Archibald Ferguson. He works various low-paying jobs. In 1923, he works as a nigh watchman at a warehouse in Chicago and is shot to death during a robbery. His wife Fanny then moved with their three sons to Newark, New Jersey. Their sons are named Lew, Arnold, and Stanley. The three sons eventually grow up and marry. Stanley marries a woman named Rose Adler. Rose does not appear to love Stanley as much as he loves her, but she agrees to the marriage. Rose works as an assistant to a photographer named Emanuel Schneiderman. Rose’s older sister, Mildred, aspires to be an academic, and her...