The sto­ry takes place in a Jew­ish world that no longer exists. A world of sev­er­al six sto­ry apart­ment build­ings, on a block, whose ten­ants are nine­ty per­cent Jew­ish. A world of old peo­ple and young peo­ple shar­ing the street, and Fat Bertha, perched at her third sto­ry win­dow, watch­ing over the neigh­bor­hood, and on the cor­ner a can­dy store to schmooze and drink a malt­ed or an egg-cream. The year is 1960 and the place is the Bronx. All twelve-year-old Ricky Davis wants to do is play stick-ball with his friends and flirt with the build­ing super’s daugh­ter while prepar­ing for his Bar Mitz­vah. But when his father cross­es gang­ster Nathan Glucks­man and goes into hid­ing, Ricky has to take over his father’s book­ie busi­ness and fig­ure out a way to pay back his debt — before the gang­sters make good on their threats. Mean­while, Ricky’s moth­er, Pearl, a fad­ing beau­ty of failed dreams, plots to raise the mon­ey by embez­zling funds from one of her boss’s clients: Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor. The Bookie’s Son paints the pic­ture of a Jew­ish fam­i­ly forced to decide just how much they’re will­ing to sac­ri­fice for each oth­er — and at what cost.