The Assistant

I found this a moving story of urban life. Read it as a selection in a class on fiction and business at the U of Chicago. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud is the story of a young man who become's a grocer's assistant in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. It explores his situation

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and that of first- and second-generation Americans in the early 1950s, as experienced by the relationship between him and an aging Jewish refugee from Tsarist Russia who owns and operates a failing small grocery store. The young man, an Italian American drifter trying to overcome a bad start in life, becomes romantically involved with the grocer's daughter. This is a poignant story that demonstrates the world just after the end of World War II through the crossroads of these characters in an urban environment. The personal way Malamud handles the clash of cultures in this setting makes this a powerful novel.

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838 The Assistant A novel, by Bernard Malamud (read 6 Feb 1966) This is easily, I noted after I read it, the best novel I have read since 28 Sep 1965 when I read Lord of the Flies. Malamud's style is direct and true--what a pleasant relief after Saul Bellow's insufferable tortuous prose (I had read

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Bellow's Herzog on 20 Jan 1966) and the story of The Assistant is so real, honest, good. Of the 20 novels on the Book Week list of "the 20 best books of fiction in the last 20 years", this is the first one that has really been a revelation of anything to me (the four I had previously read aside). I still have 8 of the 20 to read, but don't suppose I'll make another discovery like Malamud.

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This is the moving story of an Italian-American stranger who works his way into the lives of an immigrant Jewish shopkeeper and his family. Malamud perfectly portrays the grinding worries of running a mom-and-pop grocery, but also brings out bigger themes such as the importance of education and an

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individual’s ability to overcome bigotry. Focusing on the value of loyalty, repentance, and personal responsibility, it is a story of the redemptive power of love and forgiveness.

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1958. A heart-wrenching story of poverty and suffering, love and redemption. The assistant, Frank Alpine, an Italyener, shows up one day to help in the grocery store, because he feels guilty for having robbed the grocer previously. He stays to redeem himself, and falls in love with the grocer's

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daughter. Having led a hard life, an orphan and petty criminal, Alpine struggles to be good and often fails. Meanwhile the grocery store is barely hanging on. The grocer and his wife and daughter are quite miserable, feeling none has gotten out of life any of what they hoped for. For this, they escaped the pogroms?

The assistant succeeds in winning the daughter's heart, but then one night in an uncontrollable fury, he rapes her, and she renounces him. Even though they fire him from the store, he comes back and works there again and again when they can't take care of it themselves. The old father dies and he takes it over completely, being the main support of the family. As it ends he is trying to put the daughter through college and hoping to regain her affection even though he raped her. She seems as though she might forgive him.

Even though it's shocking to consider the rapist as a whole character, redeemable, Malamud makes it possible. It's not a pretty book, but it's not as ugly as you might expect. There is hope and while there is much of regret and sorrow and pain and lamenting and death, there is also love.

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Morris Bober is a Jewish grocer in poverty stricken, post-WWII Brooklyn. He can barely make ends meet but does the best he can for his wife and twenty-three year old daughter. When his meager store is robbed the dye is cast.It only gets more complicated after Frank Alpine mysteriously comes into

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his life to help with the store, court his daughter and change his life. One of the most beautiful elements to Malamud's writing is that for all his sadness, there is a thin thread of hope that winds its way through the story. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the story ends with hope.

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Books with which I become emotionally involved often land in my list of absolute favourites. The Assistant is such a book. Beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, Malamud tells the story of an immigrant family in post-war New York. It mainly centers around one family, the Bobers, and their new

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assistant Frank Alpine, yet it also touches on other members of the neighbourhood. I faithfully cheered for the Bobers and Frank Alpine, hoping that when I turn the page their situation - finally, FINALLY - changes for the better. Though this novel is of a different generation, a different era, the fact is that the human story is consistent. The cycle of love, suffering, bitterness, lost dreams, small pleasures, mistakes, forgiveness - these are relevant to all of us.

I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it, but I got a bit teary-eyed when I turned that final page. Does it get easier for Frank Alpine and the Bobers? I don't know. But the hope is there.

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The main character Morris Bober, who is a grocer in Brooklyn wants to better his familys life. Things start out bad for Morris when he is robbed, and then life improves when he hires Frank Alpine to become his Assistant. Alpine is quit a character since he falls in love with Bobers daughter Helen,

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and he starts to steal from the store. This story is good at showing an immigrant world.

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This is the first book I've read by Malamud, and I found it quite compelling. At first the characterizations seemed somewhat stereotypical, but what is stereogype other than a partial reflection of the truth. What drove me through the novel was the transformation of the character (Frank), and the

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complexification of the character (Morris). Underneath the stereotypes of these men, and the women as well, there is a spiritual battle, that is nicely resolved in the destiny, or is it fate, that Frank effects. Perhaps it is so telling because we assign to the Jews a spiritual journey that is only informed by either the Holocaust, the Christian perspective, or the perspective of the Torah. It is Ida that functions as the Torah, always setting a moral boundry, and it is Helen who functions as Moses, always attempting to reach the promised land. Fundamental to all of this is the mandatory hospitality that is owed to the stranger - something that the righteous man (Morris) and the law (Ida) circle about, giving a sense of rabbinic casuistry and interpretation. That the stranger (Frank) embodies so many moralities makes the stew all that much richer. That these spiritual perspectives are embodied in the drudgery of a poor grocery store, and the lives that are ensnared there, is the genius of Malamud's prose and storytelling.

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There is such depth of feeling and observation in this book. All the characters are heartbreaking one way or the other. "And the small in his voice said: you do have a choice".

Morris Bober is an aging Jewish grocer in a poor neighborhood of immigrants in post-war Brooklyn. Amidst greed, competition, and modernism, he struggles to keep his small business afloat. Despite the long hours he puts in with the dedication of an ant, he is losing the fight. His wife becomes

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cynical and believes a good marriage for the daughter, Helen, is the only way out of their poverty. Helen, on the other hand, only wants an education.

Frank Alpine, a young homeless Italian immigrant, turns up and manages to convince Morris to hire him as assistant in the store. Frank has a secret, and unbeknownst to the Bobers, he is there to “pay his debt.” He is determined, ambitious, hardworking, and strives to live a morally correct life, but he is dogged by his demons. Between the comings and goings in the deteriorating store, tensions increase as Frank and Helen become romantically involved. With the continuing decline of the business and the neighborhood, a quiet desperation settles, and each withdraws even more into him/herself, almost as if existed merely to await the impending doom.

Although there is some melodrama involved (one misfortune begetting another almost no end), I find the novel very compelling. The story is about disillusionment, fear, loyalty, hope and courage. It is also about having a second chance, a rebirth. Nothing grand or spectacular happens here, our characters are small people, the silent ones, whose lives are a grind, depressing even. But goodness, we realize, continue to exist amidst bleakness and isolation, and grace triumphs.

There are plenty of insights to be had from this novel, yet Malamud is able to expertly frame the story without moralizing. The story is very absorbing too, it was quite hard to put it down. This was my first Malamud and definitely not my last!

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What a fantastic book! The story of an immigrant, Jewish storekeeper and his family is so well written I could not put it down. Not an uplifting book but an account of how it was for many immigrants trying to everything they could to keep alive and to better their children. A great story of the

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human experience.

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I found this book somewhat unsatisfying. It is well written and the characters are ones that I cared about but I felt like the ending just dropped the reader.

The story involves a young man, Frank Alpine, who comes to New York from the west and ends up working in a small grocery store owned by a

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Jewish family, Morris, Ida and Helen Bober. The store is doing very badly and, to make matters worse, Morris was held up late one night getting injured in the process. Frank happened by when Morris was struggling to bring in the heavy milk crates and helps him. Ida is not happy about a goy in the store but when Morris re-injures himself she agrees to let Frank work while Morris recovers. Frank seems to be very successful at the job, bringing in more money than usual. So, even after Morris is able to return to the store he keeps him on. Morris is still not able to pay Frank very much but he gives him free room and board and cigarettes. Ida still has her suspicions about him but agrees that he is bringing in more business. Ida thinks that Frank is starting to care for Helen and that, perhaps, Helen returns the affection. In fact, Ida is correct and this is one of the central themes of the novel. However, I think Malamud has a hard time getting into female characters. I never found Helen's feelings to be very believable. And Ida seemed more of a stock character than a real person.

Nevertheless, I am glad I read this book and I may try to read The Fixer sometime since it won the Pulitzer Prize

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A Jewish immigrant named Morris Bober owns a grocery store in Brooklyn, New York, where he takes in a drifter named Frank. Morris gives Frank a job as a clerk in his store and tries to help him in any way he can. Frank has a checkered past and continual falls into his old ways, stealing from Morris

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and even peeping on his daughter. The store experiences the hardship of competition with the opening of another grocery store down the street and tensions run high as Morris and his wife fight to stay afloat—not knowing that the new grocery store is not the only thing keeping money out of their cash register. Frank fights his conscience as he begins courting Morris's daughter and comes to a crossroads when his two former accomplices in crime show up and threaten to reveal his identity.

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After reading this book I think I should have been born Jewish. This is the first book by Malamud I've read and I will now seek out more of his work to read.

I very much enjoyed the writing style, and that we knew many of the characters, but not many details of their backstory. I was very interested in the content of the book and the fate of the characters. However, there were so many details I wish were better explained to those unfamiliar with Jewish

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History. I also felt there were too many unexpected and unbelievable incidents in the end.

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I read this book with a literary supplement helping me understand it, as the meaning seemed to be lost amidst the story, and I believe that this novel was simply not for me. The language read a little forced, dated, and waywardly. While it tried to focus on the characters, I found myself growing

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distracted and slightly irritated by the way that they approached things and dealt with their lives. Although this was on Time's Top 100 Books list, I felt as if it did not quite deserve that sort of literary aplomb. This was a disappointing read.

2 stars- barely.

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The Assistant: A Novel This book must be really old (1957) by judging by both its tenor and setting.
 
Initially I found it almost sepia to read but persevered and finished it. I cannot say I enjoyed it and I cannot say that I didn't. I quite liked the metamorphosis of the character of the assistant

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but didn't like the fatalism that pervades the whole thing.
 
Well written but not much lost if you don't ever read this.

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Well-written but depressing. I almost had to put the book down because I just couldn't bear anything else happening to these people. One of the most wonderful lines I've read in quite some time though from Frank, after screwing up one time too many -- "He felt pity on the world for harboring him."

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What a great line. The relationship between Frank and Helen was ultimately too much to swallow though.

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The Assistant is a book you brood over after finishing, because the questions its characters ask—what does it mean to be a Jew?—and the questionable actions they take—working for a man you have harmed and having sex with a woman you have just rescued from being raped—are the powerful relics

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of purpose-driven writing, of a time when books were serious examinations of some aspect of society, rather than formulaic accumulations of ideology.

Bernard Malamud intertwines the lives of two down-on-their-luck characters, Morris Bober, the Jewish owner of a failing grocery store in Brooklyn, and Frank Alpine, a drifter whose tenuous connection to the grocery store, its owner and his family devolves over time as the truth behind his motivation for helping out at the store is slowly revealed. Bober, as the archetypal Jew, struggles to overcome the harms inflicted on him by an unfair world; Alpine, haunted by images of Saint Francis of Assisi, struggles to overcome the self-inflicted harms resulting from his own poor choices.

The Assistant plays the boredom of working in a store where hours pass without a single customer and the slow process of wooing a reluctant woman against sudden, seemingly Deus ex machina acts of criminality and violence as the push and pull on Frank as he works out who he is. The use of an omniscient third-person narrator is particularly effective, subtly providing the reader multiple perspectives to highlight the contrasts between not just Bober and Alpine but also what each character of the novel portrays.

The Assistant is ultimately a redemption story which focuses on the worthiness of faith, regardless of whether one is rewarded, while leaving unresolved what Frank gains in converting to Judaism, relinquishing the metaphorical vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience he has taken in choosing to run Bober's store for a life of suffering implied through Bober's example.

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