rise from NYC ghetto to Motion Picture genius

Here, in a marvelously gripping and rewarding novel, is the story of the tycoons who created and built the motion picture industry -- not in Hollywood, but in New York City at the turn of the century. — In particular, it is the story of Max Britsky -- born in the East Side ghetto of New York, penniless -- and of his struggle to survive and to conquer the world he had entered. It is also the story of the woman he married, of love and hate and fraud and financial piracy and infighting, of loyalty and betrayal.