Who is this Angel Max? Born in 1866, he is an orphan, raised in Kovno by rich relatives, educated and enlightened Jews. As a boy, he becomes obsessed with English and James Fenimore Cooper, while his siblings get caught up in the anarchist/nihilist underground.

He comes to America, to New York, and stays with relatives, not on the Lower East Side but in a townhouse on West Eleventh Street, just off Fifth Avenue. A sound marriage and equally sound business ventures in real estate make the American dream immediately come true - city and country homes, servants, carriages, and, above all, speaking English at all times.

But there is the other side of the family: revolutionary stepsisters, a crazed, violent, half brother, an anarchist cousin - none other than "Red Emma" Goldman herself. They are in and out of his life, and Max becomes "an angel" for the anarchist Cause, a little out of sympathy but more to keep them at a distance.