The story of an immigrant boy, David Schearl, in the slum jungles of the city. From foul, rat infested cellars, up dark stairways to the airy freedom of New York tenement roofs, he overlooks his world. Through his eyes we see both ugliness and beauty. The terrors of poverty, the sexual conflicts of his parents, his own initiation into sex by a lame girl, the violence of street gangs - these scenes, written by an author who uses language powerfully, have led Walter Allen to call the book one of "the great achievements in American writing in the twentieth century."

(Key Words: Novels, New York, Jews, Immigrants, Henry Roth, Jewish Fiction).