For example, Bober is an immigrant, but his experience of having to flee Russia, combined with a cautious personality, has moulded a profound stick-in-the-mud. The opposite sides of the issue become so tangled, that it is difficult to tell them apart. This conflict between the benefits and problems of moving and staying, drives the story. By contrast, Frank Alpine, a second generation Italian American, lost his parents early, and before becoming an assistant to Bober, has never remained anywhere for longer than six months, suffering a loss of educational and advancement opportunities in the process. He is honest and steady by nature, but his business has suffered in not changing or adapting. The Assistant is Bernard Malamud’s 1957 novel about an ageing Jewish shopkeeper who runs a struggling grocery business in New York, and the young man who becomes his assistant.Īlthough shopkeeper Morris Bober is an immigrant, with all the suggestion of rootlessness that his situation involves, he has spent decades in the same shop going through the same routine.
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But all her striving leaves Fred on the outside looking in. Fred can't quite bring himself to accept all his son's choices, yet Paulette is determined McKinley will want for nothing, least of all a mother's love and attention-which her own skin color cost her as a child. McKinley makes it no secret that he doesn't intend to follow in his father's footsteps at George & Company Fine Furnishings or otherwise. When their son returns home, his visit dredges up even more conflict between Fred and Paulette. Their only son, McKinley, now works hundreds of miles away, and the distance between the husband and wife feels even farther. Paulette and Fred Baldwin find themselves wading through a new season of life in Hickory Grove, North Carolina. Pearson comes a new Southern family drama about one family who discovers their history is only skin-deep and that God's love is the only family tie that binds. But when her lodger, Aggie Crowe-one of the shape-shifting Others-discovers a murdered man, Vicki finds trouble instead. Vicki was hoping to find a new career and a new life. And when a place has no boundaries, you never really know what is out there watching you. Towns such as Vicki's don't have any distance from the Others, the dominant predators who rule most of the land and all of the water throughout the world. And this is a fact that humans should never, ever forget.Īfter her divorce, Vicki DeVine took over a rustic resort near Lake Silence, in a human town that is not human controlled. Human laws do not apply in the territory controlled by the Others-vampires, shape-shifters, and even deadlier paranormal beings. In this thrilling and suspenseful fantasy set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Others series, an inn owner and her shape-shifting lodger find themselves enmeshed in danger and dark secrets. The next book in the series, The Citadel of the Autarch, is the final, and I’ll reserve judgement on the series as a whole until I’ve read it. Many seemingly unimportant things happen which, judging from the previous books, will turn out to be important later.Īs I’ve said before, these are difficult books to review because they’re largely similar – it’s really just one long book split into quarters. Some are interesting, and some aren’t – one particularly good chapter involves Severian coming across a cabin in the mountains inhabited by a mother and her children, who are being menaced by a disturbing alien beast. Severian soon makes the same mistake he did in the first novel, showing mercy to a “client,” and is forced to flee once again.Įven more so than the previous two books, The Sword of the Lictor is a series of episodic adventures ranging across cities and mountains and jungles. The third volume in Gene Wolfe’s needlessly divided Book of the New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor begins with Severian the torturer and his companion Dorcas having established themselves in Thrax, the City of Windowless Rooms. View all covers for The Sword of the Lictor (logged in users can change User Preferences to always display covers on this page) Reviews. The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe (1982) 301 p. |