A true American classic, Bernard Malamud's THE ASSISTANT is acknowledged as one of the award-wiing author's greatest works. In a novel distinguished by unparalleled emotional power and authenticity, Malamud draws a penniless Italian-American drifter with a troubled conscience an a violent personal history into the world of a Jewish grocer struggling to eke out a living in a crumbling Brooklyn neighborhood. In the despair--and ultimately in the love--of the grocer's beautiful but unfulfilled daughter, Frank Alpine finds the motivation to confront his past and seek his own redemption, even if it costs him everthing he has gained.