The Assistant: A Novel
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Book Info
Author
Malamud, Bernard
Word Count
66,000 words
based on page count
Pages
264 pages
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Edition Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Edition Publish Date
2003-07-07
Identifiers
ISBN-10: 0374504849
ISBN-13: 9780374504847
Description
Introduction by Jonathan Rosen
Bernard Malamud’s second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who “wants better” for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store.
Like Malamud’s best stories, this novel unerringly evokes an immigrant world of cramped circumstances and great expectations. Malamud defined the immigrant experience in a way that has proven vital for several generations of writers.
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