The Immigrants, Howard Fast (Houghton Mifflin, 1977)***

This novel is of the ‘sweeping saga’ style and will remind readers of some of James Michener’s novels, such as Hawaii. It’s also a rags to riches story, and includes all the elements of good soap opera (Knot’s Landing comes to mind). There’s even a bit of Jack London in the story (particularly if you’ve read London’s Martin Eden).

Although the story begins in New York City, late 19^th Century, where the Lavette family has just arrived from Italy, most of the novel plays out in San Francisco. The family is poor, but comes from a long tradition of fishermen, and it is after their move to the west coast that they begin to prosper with a fleet of fishing boats. A son, Dan, eventually expands the business into a fleet of transport ships and becomes extremely wealthy. He marries a wealthy socialite but has fallen in love with the Chinese-American daughter of his firm’s accountant. All of this takes place against the backdrop of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, and later World War I and the Great Depression.

This is and easy read for the summer, and if you like the writing, the story and the characters, there are four other volumes in the series. I enjoyed this book enough that I’m looking forward to reading the next one, Second Generation.