The Assistant

(, Main)

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Description

Frank Alpine, a drifter fleeing from his past, runs straight into struggling Brooklyn grocer Morris Bober. Seeing a chance to atone for past sins, Frank becomes Bober's assistant and keeps shop when the owner takes ill. But it is Bober's daughter, Helen, who gives Frank a real reason to stay around, even as he begins to steal from the store.

Widely considered as one of the great American-Jewish novels, The Assistant is a classic look at the social and racial divides of a country still in its infancy, and a stunning evocation of the immigrant experience - of cramped circumstances and great expectations.

Reviews

Perfect... A lyric marvel * The Nation *
Rightness permeates this book... Malamud's people are memorable and as real as rock * New York Times *
Malamud takes a familiar, almost mythical theme, turns it upside down and irradiates it with originality * Time *
There is a binding theme throughout the book, a search for fundamental truths through the study of ordinary people, their everyday ups and downs, their mundane pleasures and pains... Malamud's vision, style and world are distinctly original * San Francisco Chronicle *
He writes with wisdom, compassion and humour... in the best tradition of Chekhov, Joyce and Hemingway * New York Times *

Author Bio

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) was an American author of novels and short stories. Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the great American-Jewish authors of the twentieth century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.