Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux

Copyright Date: 1985

Edition Date: 2003 Release Date: 07/07/03

Pages: xi, 246 pages

ISBN: 0-374-50484-9

ISBN 13: 978-0-374-50484-7

Dewey: Fic

LCCN: 2003104943

Dimensions: 21 cm.

Subject Heading:
Grocers. Fiction.
Italian Americans. Fiction.
Criminals. Fiction.
Jewish families. Fiction.
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.). Fiction.

Language: English

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
NCTE Books For You
Wilson's Fiction Catalog
Wilson's High School Catalog

Word Count: 80,698

Reading Level: 5.9

Interest Level: 9+

Accelerated Reader: reading level: 5.9 / points: 13.0 / quiz: 68899 / grade: Upper Grades

Lexile: 880L

The Assistant , 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. "His best novel . . . The Assistant is as tightly written as a prose poem." --Morris Dickstein in Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction 1945-1970