Bernard Malamud A Writer's Life

Praised in The New York Times as a "wise, scrupulous, resolutely admiring biography," here is the first full-length portrait of Bernard Malamud, the self-made son of poor Jewish immigrants who became one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the post-war period. To tell Malamud's story, Philip Davis has drawn on exclusive interviews with family, friends, and colleagues; unfettered access to private journals and letters; and detailed analysis of Malamud's working methods through previously unresearched manuscripts. Davis's meticulous biography explores the many connections between Malamud's life and work, revealing all that it meant for this man to be a writer, both in terms of how he brought his life into his writing and how his writing affected his life. He shows that nothing came easily to Malamud: his family was poor, his mother probably committed suicide when Malamud was 14, and his younger brother inherited her schizophrenia. Most important, Davis restores Bernard Malamud's literary reputation as one of the great original voices of his generation, a writer of superb subtlety and clarity.

Philip Davis is Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool.

IntroductionTHE FIRST LIFE1. The Inheritance2. The Long AdolescenceTHE SECOND LIFE3. Oregon4. The Assistant5. 'Because I Can'THE THIRD LIFE6. The Beginning of the Middle Years7. 'We need some sort of poverty in our lives'8. From The Fixer towards Dubin9. Dubin's LivesIN HIS LAST LIFE10. 'As you are grooved so you are graved'