Joseph Moshev, a seventeen-year-old Russian-Jewish immigrant, comes to America alone in 1903, looking for streets paved with gold. Instead, he finds a hard life awaits him as he fights to survive and fulfill his ambition of being a "somebody." He has been preceded a decade before by his cousin Naomi Moshev, sixteen in 1903, who wants a career in show business. The journey of these to willful individuals is the grist of the novel, which takes place between 1903-1934 in an ever-changing America.