On the eve of World War II, one German Jewish family is forced to emigrate and face a new future in America, one fraught with degradations big and small, which each person suffers and conquers in a unique way. Egon Schneider, a thriving ophthalmologist and ladies' man in Frankfurt, is reduced to being "The Cheese Man" at a local grocery in Washington Heights, Catrina Harty, a vivacious daughter of dirt-poor Irish immigrants, has fought her way to a comfortable if unhappy spinsterhood, and Meyer Leavitt, Egon's terminally acerbic best friend, is a former children's book author turned sandwich-board salesman turned newspaper columnist. Together they suffer the wonders and indignities of this strange new world--and each other--in the hopes of creating a permanent home for "The Lucky Ones.