The Assistant
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud tells the story of Frank Alpine and Morris Bober, an Italian drifter and a Jewish shop owner who, after Morris offers Frank a job, work together to keep the tiny store from collapsing due to encroaching competition in the neighborhood.
At the beginning of the book the author describes Morris's daily routine. He runs a little dingy shop in Brooklyn that hasn't seen much success, and suffers from clinical ailments relat... The Fixer
The Fixer by Bernard Malamud tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman who, in the early 1900s, leaves his small Russian village to find work in Kiev to improve his lot in life.
Yakov's father-in-law, a man named Shmuel, comes to wish him well in his journey. It is revealed that Yakov's wife is barren, and Shmuel's other daughter ran off with a stranger months earlier, rendering him the village idiot. Yakov is leaving home not only because of a...
