Monday, June 27, 2011

Read the All Time 100 Novels

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Incredibly written novel that takes place in the Bronx in New York city. The novel centers around the Bober family who own a local grocery store. Because of commercialism and high end grocery markets being built around the Bober’s business, they financially are doing very poor because they can’t match the prices of the big time grocery stores. It is an insightful book that shows the transition of classic American life to a commercial American life. In the meantime the author brings the reader’s attention to the new store clerk and his influence on the Bober family both personally and professionally. The book does a good job showing the decline of family owned stores (besides the local liquor store owner who does very well for himself throughout the story).
The novel starts off with an armed robbery stealing the pathetic amount of cash from the Bober’s register. The book just continues on a downward spiral for many of the characters which results in a very entertaining, unfortunate, and realistic story. If you are feeling bad about your life, or think that you have really bad luck try reading this novel because you are guaranteed to feel some aspect of your life as being more amazing then you could ever imagine. Seriously, pick this book up.

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