Title: The Assistant
Author:  Bernard Malamud
Age Level: Juniors or Seniors in High School
Recommended by: Marcia Lubell, formerly of Yorktown High School, Yorktown, NY

Summary:  The Assistant is about Frank Alpine's transformation from a petty thief into a compassionate, self-sacrificing and loving human being.  His transformation is symbolized by his religious conversion at the end and his attempt to court Leah, Morris's daughter.  Frank seeks acceptance as Morris's son-in-law, but works tirelessly to support him and pay back his debt for an earlier robbery.   Subplots include different father-son relationships: the policeman Minogue's rejection of his criminal son; the boasting spoiling of Nat Pearl by his over-indulgent and selfishly greedy father as well as the orphan Frank who seeks a father figure in Morris.  The book is full of ironies, beginning with Frank's name, after St. Francis, winning Helen only to rape her, being discovered as a thief as he is putting money back IN the cash register, not taking it out; finally confessing his crime only to lose everything because the confession comes too late.   Frank is a typical Malamud anti-hero, a failure at everything he tries, even theft. But his final conversion to Judaism, a religion that he despised before, represents his becoming a fully human being, one who accepts responsibility for his actions and takes on the role of provider and protector for his adopted family.

Teaching Suggestions: This book is so rich with discussible topics that a Socratic Seminar is relatively easy to organize.  After the students have completed a guided reading of the book, they consider (in pairs) the question of what they believe to be the ingredients for an ideal father-son relationship and why.  They then discuss their ideas further in groups of four.  Finally they convene as a class for the seminar, focusing on what Frank is looking for in Morris Bober and what the other father-son relationships in the book lack.  Another suggestion is to use a variant of literature circles and have expert groups comprised of Discussion Leader, Summarizer, Character Builder, Theme Maker, and The Gossip Columnist (to look at the many ironies in the book) and then have one expert from each group gather in a literature circle to discuss the many aspects of the book that make The Assistant so worthwhile to study.