Bernard Malamud

Set in Tsarist Russia during a period of virulent anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. At the outset, Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, he finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found dead in a cave, drained of nearly all his blood, the Jews are accused...

More than 50 stories on the Jewish experience this century. They chronicle the lives of Old Country ancestors, refugees, immigrants or just simple wanderers like the anti- hero Fidelman. The settings are on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now an American baseball hero and a winner after a dark period, Roy finds the woman he thought he had lost. But he is up against corrupters, seducers, and glory destroyers. And he has to win the toughest game of his life.

On the top floor of an abandoned tenement, Harry struggles to complete the novel he has been writing for almost ten years. Then Willie, a black militant wannabe writer, moves into another part of the building to work on his own book.