The Assistant - Bernard Malamud

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. Like Malamud's best stories, this novel unerringly evokes an immigrant world of cramped circumstances and great expectations. n nThe 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

n nLike 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. n nHis best novel .

. . The Assistant is as tightly written as a prose poem.

--Morris Dickstein in Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction 1945-1970n