Focus (Library of Modern Jewish Literature) [Paperback]

Arthur Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996 | Series: Library of Modern Jewish Literature

A reticent personnel manager living with his mother, Mr Newman shares the prejudices of his times and of his neighbours - and neither a Hispanic woman abused outside his window nor the persecution of the Jewish store owner he buys his paper from are any of his business. Until Newman begins wearing glasses, and others begin to mistake him for a Jew.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

American dramatist Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. In 1938 Miller won awards for his comedy The Grass Still Grows. His major achievement was Death of a Salesman, which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for drama and the 1949 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. The Crucible was aimed at the widespread congressional investigation of subversive activities in the US; the drama won the 1953 Tony Award. Miller's autobiography, Timebends: A Life was published in 1987. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 217 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815604378
• ISBN-13: 978-0815604372
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,359,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was born in New York City in 1915 and studied at the University of Michigan. He was awarded the Avery Hopwood Award for Playwrighting at University of Michigan in 1936. He twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, received two Emmy awards and three Tony Awards for his plays, as well as a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also won an Obie award, a BBC Best Play Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, a Gold Medal for Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library, the John F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Algur Meadows Award. He received honorary degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University and was awarded the Prix Moliere of the French theatre, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pulitzer Prize, as well as numerous other awards. He was named the Jefferson Lecturer for the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2001. He was awarded the 2002 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters and the 2003 Jerusalem Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a rare gem reminiscent of Carver, Mamet and even Highsmith, November 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Focus (movie tie-in) (Paperback)

Arthur Miller's "Focus" is a brilliant indictment of anti-Semitism in America. It was first published in 1945 and hasn't lost an iota of its relevance or power since then. In fact, it may be even more timely today than it was in the 1940s. One of the most surprising things about "Focus" is just how suspenseful it is. Miller makes his beleaguered hero's plight as riveting as a Patricia Highsmith novel. The dialog is witty and sharp and prefigures both David Mamet and Raymond Carver. Miller has an amazing ability to reveal a character's thoughts in lines of dialog that say exactly the opposite of what that character is really thinking. He also has a knack for exposing the tortured reasoning of those who abandon their ideals in a misguided effort to fit in with the crowd. Miller understands that sometimes it's not so much a desire to belong that inspires such an abandonment, as it is a desire to be left alone. But finding yourself left alone can sometimes be the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person.
Miller brilliantly exploits his protagonist's need for eye-glasses as a metaphor for the shortsidedness at the heart of all bigotry. Ironically, the spectacles that help Lawrence Newman better perceive the world around him are the very instruments that cause him to be so dangerously mispercieved by his bigotted neighbors and business colleagues. And only when he finds himself so radically misunderstood by his former "friends" is Newman able to understand his own racial myopia. This is a brilliant and beautiful novel, which never gives in to politicking or preachiness and remains gripping to its very satisfying final paragraph.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, powerful, and impossible to put down., February 20, 2002

By 

Carole Barkley (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Focus (movie tie-in) (Paperback)

The WASPish main character, Lawrence Newman, learns about bigotry first hand when, after getting fitted with eyeglasses, he is suddenly perceived as "looking Jewish" by his neighbors and business colleagues. His life becomes a nightmare as he first tries to disassociate himself from Jews and gradually begins to identify with them.

Newman himself is a bigot, although he's very gentlemanly about it. He just does not question the origin, fairness, or rationale behind the warped thinking that underlies his own assumptions. He is sleepwalking through life, trying to avoid any surprises or danger, when he is thrust into a disorderly, ugly world that was there all along, but which he had steadfastly refused to see. Newman's life is utterly banal, with a vague dreamlike quality that gradually becomes a nightmare.

With a masterful combination of description and dialogue, the author takes the reader on a grimly fascinating and disturbing journey through the side of human nature that lurks just under the surface of civilization.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astounding and Outstanding, July 25, 2006

By 

Charles Pooter "C.P." (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Focus (movie tie-in) (Paperback)

Focus is an incredible story, written in a bizarre window in time. Before the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe were known, Miller writes of anti-Semitism and prejudice in America. The story could have just as easily taken place in 1930's Germany. The thesis of this book is how much inhumanity will you passively allow, until you become a victim of it? Some condemn Newman's catharsis as being too slow or weak, but history has shown us time and time again how unprotestingly we put up with cruelty and barbarism. In the end, I find Newman is a person to be proud of: he turns his back on the "easy way out" his wife offers. He fully realises the injustice in the society, and he is ready to confront it. Focus shows us a world many didn't know existed, and offers hope in its courage.