The Assistant - Softcover

Malamud, Bernard

3.9

10,643 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0857890972 ISBN 13: 9780857890979

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2014

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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.

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Review:

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

From the Author:

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.

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