Number of Pages: 259 pages
Genre: Fiction, short stories
This book consists of one novella and five short stories: Over the course of a summer a young working-class man falls in love with a much wealthier student; A thirteen year old boy confronts his rabbi with challenging religious questions, and goes to extreme lengths to get answers; A war hero sergeant finds himself being manipulated by three new recruits; A married 59 year old man suffers a life crisis and has an affair; A high-school student befriends the class troublemaker; and a lawyer tries to keep the peace between the conservative inhabitants of a small community and an Orthodox yeshiva recently established in the neighbourhood.
This was the the first published book by the celebrated author Philip Roth, and for a first book it really is astonishing how good it is. Every one of the stories is worth reading. The prose is light and beautifully written, and there is a real feel for character and dialogue. It's also very funny.
The title novella was turned into a film in 1969.
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