Volume 30, Number 21 & 22 · January 19, 1984
The Shaman and the Schlemiel
By John Leonard
The Stories of Bernard Malamud
by Bernard Malamud
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 350 pp., $17.95
Bernard Malamud doesn't explain why, out of so many stories, he has chosen these twenty-five. They are not arranged in chronological order, but plucked like raisins from the cake of the career. Several old favorites are missing. (Where, for instance, is 'Still Life,' or 'A Pimp's Revenge'? Why include 'The Cost of Living' and not 'The Lady of the Lake'?) Only two, 'The Model' and 'God's Wrath,' have not already been published in a collection, and neither is first-rate. 'Vus noks du mir a chinik?' his father used to ask him when young Malamud had been to long-winded in telling his tale: What tune are you banging on your pot?
Review, 2878 words
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