Benard Malamud's The Assistant

In the middle of The Assistant, Helen, the grocer’s daughter, gives a stack of books to Frank, the titular assistant.  She has checked out a number of books from the library for him: Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Crime and Punishment.  Frank, not an educated man, struggles through these texts, reading, “at the start, in snatches, then in bursts of strange hunger.”  He read them because he wanted to impress Helen, and

[a]fterward Helen suggested other novels by the same writers, so he would know them better, but Frank balked, saying that he wasn’t sure he had understood those he had read. ‘I’m sure you have,’ she answered, ‘if you got to know the people.’ ‘I know them,’ he muttered.  But to please her he worked through two more thick books, sometimes tasting nausea on his tongue, his face strained as he read, eyes bright black, frowning, although he usually felt some relief at the end of the book.  He wondered what Helen found so satisfying in all this goddamned human misery, and suspected her of knowing he had spied on her in the bathroom and was using the books to punish him for it.  But then he thought that it was unlikely.  Anyway, he could not get out of his thoughts how quick some people’s lives went to pot when they couldn’t make up their minds what to do when they had to do it: and he was troubled by the thought of how easy it was for a man to wreck his whole life in a single wrong act.  After that they guy suffered forever, no matter what he did to make up for the wrong.

This passage encapsulates the spirit of Bernard Malamud’s novel and all the strands that come together in what is really a simple story, as far as plot goes.  First, it is all about the characters—if you get to know them, then you understand the novel.  Through them you will see “all this goddamned human misery” and you will see suffering at the heart of the story.  Malamud places his book in the tradition of Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment—these epic, “thick books,” even as he penned a short novel.  What impresses me is the epic scope that is covered in such brevity.

The Assistant is about Morris Bober, a Jewish grocer in his sixties whose store is struggling to produce enough money to support Morris, his wife Ida, and his daughter Helen.  Helen has dreams of going to college, but she has had to work full time to help support the family.  The grocery store is described by the family as a “pit” and a “trap,” a thing from which they can’t escape and that is killing them.  It can’t support them and they can’t sell it.  While we meet many other characters who live and work on their same Brooklyn block, the other major character of course is Frank Alpine.  Frank is from the West coast and has been a drifter his entire adult life.  He is of Italian descent and feels like he keeps making bad decisions, blown along by life instead of creating his own future.

When we first meet Frank, he is loitering around the neighborhood and begins helping Morris drag in the heavy milk bottles in the morning.  Ever since a duo of “holdupniks” beat Morris in the head with the butt of a gun and emptied the already empty register, Morris has been weak.  He appreciates the help, and while he doesn’t trust the goy, he feels sorry for him when Frank tells him of his past.  Morris is an honest and trusting man, believing other people are good at heart.  When Morris pushes himself too quickly and must lie in bed for weeks on end, Frank inserts himself in the grocery, working for no pay in order, he says, to learn the business.

Frank’s intentions are good.  He was one of the two men who held Morris up and he has been wracked with guilt about it.  He has returned the money he stole to the register and seems to be making amends. Frank helps grow the business and makes it more profitable, and Morris feels Frank is good luck.  Because I don’t want to spoil the plot, I will leave off there and say that Frank spends the whole novel doing things he regrets and trying to make up for it.  He is warned by many to stay away from the grocery, that it will suck out his life and entomb him as it did Morris.  Even Helen, whom Frank has fallen for, tells him to get out while he can.  But in spite of everyone shoeing him away and the Bobers outright forbidding him at points from being there, Frank will not leave, paying back a series of debts that he can never repay.  Frank is a wonderfully complex character whom you admire, pity, and despise in turns. All the characters are equally rich, admirable and pitiable.

At the axis of all these characters, Malamud balances a host of themes.  The Assistant is about immigrants.  It’s about America.  It’s about post-holocaust Jews.  It's about the meeting of Jewish and Christian culture.  It’s about fathers and sons, generations in America.  It’s about poverty.  It’s about assimilation.  And more than anything else, it’s about suffering and redemption. 

Being a Jew in this novel has nothing to do with religious practices.  The Bobers are not kosher.  They don’t attend a synagogue.  We don’t see them observing any religious holidays.  Instead, there are only fleeting conversations between Frank and Morris about what it is to be Jewish.  Morris says that to be Jewish is to treat other people well, to help other people, and to suffer for them.  Frank has no love for the Jews when the novel opens, and he suspect that they are a people of victims who suffer out of weakness.  In the end it is Frank’s story as he grows not only to respect Morris but to take his place.  He takes his place not only physically in the store but as a sufferer.  At any time, Frank is free to leave town and not worry about the Bobers, but instead he stubbornly haunts them, taking their punishment and abuse because he sees his only hope as sticking it out and getting the forgiveness he needs.  It is a story of redemption in which redemption is never finally achieved.  The act of seeking redemption is more important than the redemption at the other end, and I had never seen that dramatized in a work of art before.  The prodigal son is always welcomed with open arms in the end, isn’t he?  He is restored to his proper place in the household when he humbles himself and confesses to his wrongs, isn’t he?  Here the prodigal son is turned away only to insert himself as a house-servant by the force of his will.  The novel does not have traditionally happy ending (I am sure you are shocked to hear) but neither is it a hopeless or depressing ending.  Frank has gone through an impressive change, but as he says, “he could see out but nobody could see in.”

This is one of those novels that sneaks up on you: it's a decent story,  has excellent and riveting characters, has a modest plot arc.  But once the final cover was closed, I have spent a lot of time trying to find all the threads running through the story and look at them together.  There is a lot to chew on.  Of course, if you don’t like chewing, all you need to do is what Helen advises Frank: get to know the people.  That’s all it takes to enjoy The Assistant.