The magic worlds of Bernard Malamud

In the best literary tradition, Bernard Malamud uses the particular experiences of his subjects--Eastern European Jews, immigrant Americans, and urban African Americans--to express the universal. This book offers an exploration of this beloved American writer's fiction, which has won two National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. In addition to the literary studies, personal recollections by son Paul Malamud, memoirs and portraits by good friends, colleagues, and fellow writers such as Cynthia Ozick, Daniel Stern, and Nicolas Delbanco illuminate Malamud's life and work. The contributors reveal that in an age that deconstructs, Malamud's voice does not. Instead, it speaks clearly and imaginatively with the weight of ancient traditions and the understanding of modern conditions.

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During his lifetime, Malamud was most commonly linked to the other two most prominent American Jewish writers: Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. In fact, Bellow once famously referred to the trio as the "Hart, Shaffner and Marx" (well-known men's clothing manufacturers) of the writing trade, his way of ridiculing the notion that their shared ethnic particularity rendered their writing indistinguishable. But readers of Malamud's fiction never doubted that the represented world of his imagination was unique. As the excellent essays Avery (Towson Univ.) gathers in this collection testify, Malamud's vision combined the legendary with social realism, the rarified realms of a haunted past with the gritty evocations of depression-bound Brooklyn neighborhoods. Comprising 17 chapters organized in three sections--"The Author" (including touching recollections by Malamud's son and Cynthia Ozick), "Individual Works," and "Thematic Threads: Patterns in Malamud's Fiction"--the volume provides a comprehensive account of the content and literary method of one of the US's most dedicated authors. Though the settings of Malamud's short fiction and novels vary--from 19th-century Russia to 20th-century America, from Italian statuary gardens to post-thermonuclear war horrors--his moral purpose was constant, and it receives much attention here. A detailed annotated bibliography cites further studies. All academic and large public collections. M. Butovsky emeritus, Concordia University

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
I. The Author
Chapter 1 Malamud in Corvallis: Memories of Dad	p. 3
Chapter 2 Recollecting Bernie	p. 13
Chapter 3 Remembrances: Bernard Malamud	p. 25
Chapter 4 Malamud: Seen and Unseen	p. 29
Chapter 5 On The Magic Barrel	p. 35
Chapter 6 The Rhythms of Friendship in the Life of Art: The Correspondence of Bernard Malamud and Rosemarie Beck	p. 43
II. Individual Works
Chapter 7 America and the History of the Jews in Bernard Malamud's "The Last Mohican"	p. 59
Chapter 8 Zen Buddhism and The Assistant: A Grocery as a Training Monastery	p. 69
Chapter 9 Malamud's New [Academic] Life--and Ours	p. 87
Chapter 10 The Lives of Dubin	p. 101
Chapter 11 Gorilla in the Myth: Malamud's God's Grace	p. 111
III. Thematic Threads: Patterns in Malamud's Fiction
Chapter 12 Reflections on Transmogrified Yiddish Archetypes in Fiction by Bernard Malamud	p. 123
Chapter 13 Not True Although Truth: The Holocaust's Legacy in Three Malamud Stories: "The German Refugee," "Man in the Drawer," and "The Lady of the Lake"	p. 139
Chapter 14 Bernard and Juliet: Romances and Desire in Malamud's High Art	p. 153
Chapter 15 Bernard Malamud and Cynthia Ozick: Kindred Neshamas	p. 161
Chapter 16 Bernard Malamud and His Universal Menschen	p. 167
Chapter 17 A Kind of Vigilance: Tropic Suspension in Bernard Malamud's Fiction	p. 175
IV. Annotated Select Bibliography
Eileen H. Watts	p. 189
Contributors List	p. 209
Index	p. 213

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