James Samuel Vincent, an affluent Manhattan attorney shirks his modest Irish American background but hews to his father’s meandering ways. James muddles through a topsy-turvy relationship with his son, Rufus, which is further complicated when Rufus marries Claudia Christie.
Claudia’s mother, Agnes, is a beautiful African American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx.