The Fox­tail Lega­cy is a multi­gen­er­a­tional saga span­ning from the shtetls of Rus­sia under the Czars, to South African min­ing fields dur­ing the 1890s gold rush under the Boer, to the Jew­ish immi­grant expe­ri­ence in Amer­i­ca of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. The cen­tral char­ac­ter in this mish­pocha tale is Jacob Itzkowitz, whose dri­ve to be a ​“big man” pro­pels him to over­come anti­semitism and rise from ped­dler to busi­ness mogul at the Jer­sey Shore. Yet the very strength enabling Jacob to stare down a resur­gent KKK in the 1920s also fuels the dark side of his ambi­tion, his plot­ting and dou­ble-deal­ing, which threat­en to destroy his grow­ing empire and the lega­cy he’s built for his family.

Jacob is well-matched by Shi­ra, his bride through an old-coun­try match­mak­er. Shi­ra car­ries her own deep secret that leads to a cen­tral con­flict of the nov­el, with rip­ples caus­ing intra-fam­i­ly strife for two more gen­er­a­tions. Togeth­er, their strong wills cre­ate clash­es, fuel feuds, and sow the seeds for a com­plex legal bat­tle over inher­i­tance decades after Jacob’s death.