Big and Little Jake

Book excerpt: A LUSTY MEMORIAL TO OUR FOREBEARS SEARCH FOR FREEDOM. This book is a work of fiction. The people populating these pages are not real people living or dead. They are mirror images of the people who made the incredible trek from European intolerance to their dream of a better life in 'AMERICA'. During the half century between 1880 and 1924 more than twelve million valiant beings made their precarious way to these shores. Each of them might have provided a story-- good, bad, inspiring or humbling. In fact, a bibliography of their stories-- fiction, memoir, biography, and history would fill a large library. As is normal that generation of determined beings is now gone from this scene, and their children, the generation later dubbed "The Greatest," also dwindling away. This then, is another story in that pantheon, a memorial tale out of those lusty years about one fictional family chasing one of those twelve million dreams.