Gussie and Luther

During the depth of the Great Depression, a wino hooker passed out and froze to death in the alley next to Gussie and Sol Steinberg's little grocery store in the ghetto. She left behind a half starved, nine year old boy, Luther, whom the Steinbergs raised and educated as a son. Their biological son, Maxwell, brilliant and sensitive, resented Luther and eventually fled the ghetto for Harvard Law, a Wasp wife and a career in a white-shoe Boston law firm. When Sol dies, Luther reappears in Gussie's life, a handsome, conservatively dressed, "white-speaking" cocaine dealer who sells only to white professionals. Gussie loves Luther deeply and he persuades her to allow him to use the store as a front for a cocaine operation by convincing her that cocaine is a "harmless white man's party toy." The cocaine operation is so cleverly conceived that the police are baffled, humiliated and infuriated. Luther becomes a legend and Gussie fulfills her dream of regaining the respect of the black community, offering quality foods in a clean, attractive store. It seemed as though there would always be joy and prosperity at Steinbergs. But the little ghetto grocery store was fore-doomed and the two sons that had vied for Gussie's love are confronted with a wrenching dilemma when when Maxwell comes home to save his mother from prison.