num_pages: 264
description: Norman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan. Making his rounds from apartment to apartment, Moonbloom confronts a wildly varied assortment of brilliantly described urban characters, among them a gay jazz musician with a sideline as a gigolo, a Holocaust survivor, and a brilliant young black writer modeled on James Baldwin. Moonbloom hears their cries of outrage and abuse; he learns about their secret sorrows and desires. And as he grows familiar with their stories, he finds that he is drawn, in spite of his best judgment, into a desperate attempt to improve their lives.Edward Lewis Wallant's astonishing comic tour de force is a neglected masterpiece of 1960s America.
language: English
title: The Tenants of Moonbloom
titlecomplete: The Tenants of Moonbloom
genres: Jewish, 20th Century, American, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classics, The United States Of America, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 759
publisher: NYRB Classics