First published 1989
Morris Bober stands behind the counter of his failing grocery store, watching his dreams crumble alongside his neighborhood. Frank Alpine arrives as a drifter who becomes both helper and burden, complicating Morris's already strained relationship with his daughter Helen. In another tale, Yakov Bok faces persecution that tests every fiber of his being, while baseball player Roy Hobbs discovers that natural talent cannot shield him from the consequences of his choices. These characters wrestle with desires that pull them between duty and passion, between the weight of tradition and the promise of reinvention. A magical hat transforms one man's luck, while another discovers that love requires sacrifices he never imagined making. Each story reveals how ordinary people confront extraordinary moral choices, finding themselves caught between what they want and what they owe to others. The emotional core lies in these moments of recognition when characters must choose between self-preservation and connection to something larger than themselves.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: duty-vs-passion, self-preservation-vs-connection
350 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux