Summary

The novel opens in the summer of 1944, when the United States is experiencing a higher number of polio cases than usual. There is no cure for polio in the time of the novel, and no one knows exactly how the virus spreads. It is only known that polio can cripple and even kill people. The novel focuses on the city of Newark, New Jersey. Eugene “Bucky” Cantor is a Jewish, 23-year-old graduate of Panzer College. He is working as a physical education teacher for a summer fitness program at a public school in Newark called Chancellor Avenue School. One day, while Cantor is overseeing his students on the playground, a group of ten Italian men from a different Newark neighborhood arrive. They say that they are there to spread polio, as there have been no cases reported in the predominantly Jewish Weequahic neighborhood...