Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant
Of course, the daughter, Helen, ends up developing feelings for Frank, the dark and brooding type strip-mined by Hollywood in the last few decades. Frank, always coy about his past, is left to consider his options: make a clean break by owning up to his history, or blowing a potentially good situation and leaving town after a few months, which is the pattern of his life to date.
The Assistant is understated, although I’m not sure whether it’s fair to call it dull. Malamud’s prose moves despite his use of the broken English of Jewish immigrants from the early 20th century, and there’s enough “action” (although much of it comes in the form of words) to keep you turning the pages. But by the time you reach the end and look back on what actually took place, it doesn’t add up to much. Yet at the same time, it’s not a detailed character study of Frank, nor is it a comment on the plight of immigrants who saw their neighborhoods begin to rot from under them. If anything, the lead character in the book is Judaism, or perhaps Jewish-ness as a cultural rather than religious identity. Perhaps if you grew up Jewish, it would resonate more strongly than it did with me.
Next up: A rarity for me, a re-read. I first read Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews