First published 1980
Mendel rushes through New York's winter streets with his mentally disabled son Isaac, desperate to secure the boy's future before his own death. Time runs short as Mendel confronts bureaucrats, relatives, and his own failing body in a race against mortality. In other stories, a young writer struggles with his craft while caring for his dying father. A grocery store owner faces impossible choices between survival and dignity. An aging professor discovers uncomfortable truths about his past. Each character wrestles with questions of responsibility, sacrifice, and what we owe to those who depend on us. Malamud places ordinary people in situations where they must choose between self-preservation and moral obligation, revealing how crisis strips away pretense to expose human character at its core.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, race-against-time
Setting: New York
Period: Winter
212 pages · Hardcover · Chatto & Windus
Content warnings: mental-illness