A brilliant, under appreciated account of the struggles against poverty in a setting where the rawest capitalism prevails. The author described it as a retelling of the story of Jacob and Esau, the latter reincarnated as a shrewd pimp and the former (perhaps) a communist agitator or the narrator, named Jake. He tells the story in middle age, after the Holocaust. But the story itself is set in his youth, and may be about the Hasidic concept of "forcing the end," the end being the Holocaust. Nissenson writes what might be called a noir crime novel, one of the most original American art forms. Death and evil are not eliminated, nor is the community cleansed. But perseverance itself is heroic, if not redemptive.