Bernard Malamud
Subtitle: novels and stories of the 1940s & 50s
By: Philip Davis, editor
Contributors: Davis, Philip (Philip Maurice), editor
Series: The Library of America -- 248; Library of America -- 248.
Publisher: The Library of America
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 712
ISBN-13: 9781598532920
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Grocers; Jewish families; Baseball players; Fiction; American Short stories
Other titles: Malamud :; Novels and stories of the 1940s & 50s
Description: Raised in Brooklyn, the son of Jewish immigrants, and coming of age in Depression-era New York, Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) began his career writing stories of unsparing precision and power, plumbing the depths of an impoverished urban world. His early, naturalistic style evolved into an inventive, often surreal idiom that blurs reality and fantasy. His first novel, The Natural (1952), is a dazzling reimagining of the possibilities of sports fiction, and it remains one of the greatest and most beloved novels about baseball ever written. In the The Assistant (1957), Malamud created a searing drama of guilt and redemption about a struggling grocer's family and the mysterious drifter who comes to rob, and then to work at, his store, transforming all of their lives in unforeseen ways. Joining these novels are twenty-six short stories, ranging from the early tale "Armistice," set in Brooklyn during the troubling weeks of the German invasion of France in 1940, to one of his deepest and most celebrated stories, "The Magic Barrel," a deep fable about a rabbinical student and the matchmaker who leads him to an utterly unexpected bride.
Table of contents: title: The natural -- ; title: The assistant -- ; title: A note to my Norwegian readers on The assistant --  -- Twenty stories.; title: Benefit performance -- ; title: The place is different now -- ; title: Steady customer -- ;; title: The literary life of Laban Goldman -- ;; title: The cost of living -- ; title: The prison -- ; title: The first seven years -- ; title: The death of me -- ; title: The bill -- ; title: An apology -- ; title: The loan -- ; title: The girl of my dreams -- ; title: The magic barrel -- ; title: The mourners -- ; title: Angel Levine -- ; title: A summer's reading -- ; title: Take pity -- ; title: The lady of the lake -- ; title: Behold the key -- ; title: The maid's shoes --  -- Posthumously published stories.; title: Armistice -- ; title: Spring rain -- ; title: The grocery store -- ; title: A confession of murder -- ; title: Riding pants -- ; title: The elevator.