Customer Reviews

The Immigrants

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In this book, originally published in 1977 by the same author who wrote Spartacus, immigrants in turn-of-the-century San Francisco make their way against timeless enemies like swindlers, nature, and social convention. With a mix of history and fiction, this first tome in a series focuses on Dan Lavette, son of Italian immigrants who embodies the Tough Man With a Soft Heart stereotype. It's well-written and was made into a TV miniseries in 1978.

Unfortunately, the Kindle formatting in this edition was not well done. Words are broken in two (presumably in the places where a hyphen had been at the end of a line of text in some other edition) and occasionally even whole lines are aligned wrong. This was a major impediment to smooth reading.

UPDATE: A new and corrected version has been released, and it seems that the problems have been fixed! I added a star.

This is a good book, but the Kindle version is terribly marred by formatting issues. On every single page there are errors... mostly when words are mysteriously cut into two parts. For ex ample, you will be re ading a long and re alize that the words have random spaces in the mid dle of them.

This goes on for the entire book.

I read on these reviews that the formatting had been fixed, but even after deleting and asking Amazon Customer Service to send it to me again, it was still a problem.

What a shame.

I have loved this book (and series) for years, and am thrilled to replace my tattered paperbacks with the Kindle version. A true saga exploring a family in the San Francisco area and their family members through the generations. The Immigrants introduces wonderfully human characters and it was a priviledge to go on this journey with them.

I found this book in the Kindle Free section and thought that I would give it a try. I did notice the poor alignment. It really didn't bother me, as I was so caught up in the story. I did not want to put it down. I would definately recommend.

I got this as a Kindle "freebie", and boy did I get a bargain! Others have mentioned the formatting problems with spaces inside a lot of words, and I noticed that but was able to continue reading.

I had not gotten very far into the book when Amazon notified me there was an updated version, and I accepted that. The update totally fixed all the formatting problems I'd seen before.

This was a very interesting and detailed story of people coming to the US in 1888, and followed the family on through the stock market crash of 1929. Of course lots of ups and downs along the way, but all in all a very interesting and entertaining read.

I am also interested enough to follow up with the author's other books in this series. A good one.

The Immigrantsis a very formulaic rags to riches novel that takes place in the period late 1800's to 1930's. So we go through the San Francisco earthquake, shipping opportunities during World War I, the beginning of the airline industry, and the stock market crash. Dan Lavette goes from a teenager whose immigrant parents are killed in the earthquake to a multimillionaire to homeless after the stock market crash. And along the way... a loveless marriage to a Nob Hill socialite, children that he doesn't know, a love affair and love child with a Chinese girl. In spite of not being a unique storyline, I enjoyed the characters and the interesting information about life in California during this period of time as most books that take place in this timeframe are centered around Eastern locations like New York City. The author appears to have done lots of research to bring the location to life. We even get a glimpse of the movie industry getting ready for talkies, and the emergence of the California wine industry. I like the book enough to consider reading the rest of the books in the series.

Howard Fast has long been my favorite writing. His work is timeless. We, as immigrants (and we all are) can relate to this story of warmth, loss and love.
Great book. Never ages.

I had never heard if this book/series before until is popped up as a free kindle book. I really enjoyed the story and the characters. I thought it was a good book in the first of a series and will definetly have to go and find the others. Very glad I was introduced to this and was completely sucked into the story and the world of these character (to the point that the annoying formatting quirks disappeared)

Apparently this book has been out of print, but I found this used copy. It is book 1 of the Immigrant series by Howard Fast, a wonderful saga of a family in San Francisco, spanning a time period starting in the early 1900's to about the 1980's. There is much history and the author has done a lot of research ofThe Immigrants the politics of the country during those times as well as the history of San Francisco and the West Coast. I would highly recommend this series, just wish that the entire series would be available on the Kindle.

Howard Fast wrote a very moving and wonderful tale of legal immigrants who come to the United States in the 1900s from Europe. Despite hardship and tradgedy, the families portrayed grow and learn to love one another and are an asset to all around them. A 3 part television series in the 1970s was created, but no taping has ever been issued. [...]
Great historical & geography of early San Francisco and Los Angeles. There are a total of 6 books in the completed series.