How It All Goes Down
Welcome to the early 1900s in New Rochelle, New York! There are a lot of characters to meet right off the bat, so sit back and make yourself comfortable. First there's an upper middle class family that includes Father, Mother, Grandfather, Mother's Younger Brother and Little Boy. Yes, those are their names. We wonder just how much taunting they went through on the playground.
Then there's Evelyn Nesbit, a famous model who Mother's Younger Brother is obsessed with. There's Mameh, Tateh and Little Girl, a Jewish family trying to make ends meet on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "Mameh" and "Tateh" mean "Mommy" and "Daddy" in Yiddish: we assumed that they received their fair share of schoolyard taunting as well.
Oh, and don't forget famous folks like J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford and Harry Houdini, the celebrated escape artist. They're going to figure in this story too.
It all begins in the summer, as Harry Houdini's car crashes in front of the upper middle class family's house. Houdini sticks around awhile and drinks some lemonade, before getting a cryptic message from Little Boy to "warn the Duke."
In the meantime, Evelyn Nesbit is preparing for the trial of her husband. You see, he killed her former lover, the architect Stanford White. Bored, Evelyn tours the Lower East Side, where she meets Tateh and Little Girl. Mameh's already out of the picture, because she slept with her employer to help pay the rent. Tateh kicked her to the curb, which we don't think is terribly kind of him.
Evelyn becomes obsessed with Little Girl and Tateh, who introduces her to Emma Goldman, the famous political activist. While Emma Goldman's giving Evelyn a massage, Mother's Younger Brother spies on them, but can't hide his presence for long. Despite the fact that he's basically a stalker, Evelyn starts dating him.
Whew, got all that? Because now it really starts to get interesting. While Father's away at the North Pole on an expedition, Mother discovers a newborn black baby in the backyard. Rather than press charges against the baby's mother, Sarah, Mother lets her move in. Soon Coalhouse Walker Jr. (the baby's father and a Harlem musician) comes calling but Sarah won't see him. At least at first.
After playing hard to get for a while she comes around, and she and Coalhouse plan to get married. While all this is happening Father returns from the North Pole, Tateh and his daughter flee to New York, and Evelyn Nesbit ends her affair with Mother's Younger Brother.
The real story now though is about Coalhouse and Sarah, as things take a turn for the worse. One day, after leaving Sarah, Coalhouse is harassed by a local firehouse. They won't let him pass in his nice car without paying a toll, something Coalhouse refuses to do. He won't back down either, especially after his car is destroyed. Worse yet, he won't marry Sarah until the whole thing's resolved. Uh oh.
Upset that Coalhouse can't get justice and won't marry her until he does, Sarah goes to get help from the Vice President (yup, the Vice President), who just happens to be in town. The Secret Service doesn't take kindly to her approaching him, and they smack her in the chest with the butt of a rifle. Before you know it, Sarah's in a hospital dying, with Coalhouse by her side... and revenge on his mind.
What does Coalhouse do? For starters, he destroys the volunteer firehouse, killing four firemen in the process. But Coalhouse is just getting started. He's got a gang now, including Mother's Younger Brother, and they've got big plans, including taking over J.P. Morgan's library. In the meantime they blow up a police station, with Mother's Younger Brother's help.
The upper middle class family, plus Sarah and the baby, all go to Atlantic City to escape the media attention caused by Coalhouse. There they meet up with Tateh and Little Girl. Tateh is now a movie director, having sold an idea for a movie book to Franklin Novelty Co., and Little Girl has grown up. Right away there's a special bond between Little Girl and Little Boy, and... between Tateh and Mother, who's getting tired of Father.
As the story builds to its climax, Coalhouse and his gang carry through on their plan to take over J.P. Morgan's library, holding the library's contents for ransom until their demands are met. Booker T. Washington and Father both help in the negotiations but Coalhouse is ultimately shot down by a trigger-happy police department.
In the aftermath, Mother's Younger Brother flees to the wars in Mexico, where he's later killed. Father dies aboard the Lusitania during World War I. And lastly, Mother and Tateh get married and end up living in California with their children and Sarah and Coalhouse's orphaned child. At least there's one happy ending, right?