Written in Yiddish, it first appeared serially in the Jewish daily Forward between 1934 and 1935, after Singer had left Poland and moved to New York.
Most of the novel takes place in the Polish city of Łódź, mostly among the large Jewish community that lived there before World War II.
The main character is Max Ashkenazi, who moves away from his Hasidic Jewish upbringing and becomes a successful industrialist.
The upheaval of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the creation of the Second Polish Republic ruin him financially.
Moreover, it is a story about a man doing what he does best and chasing false idols, ideologies, and glory; Max longs to be called the King of Łódź, and his figure is partly modeled on Izrael Poznański.