Customer Reviews

My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud

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I was not aware that Bernard Malamud's daughter had written a book about her famous father. But when I came across this book in a Grand Rapids discount book store I pounced on it, because I spent many happy hours reading Malamud's fine fiction from college onward. It seemed hard to believe that Malamud has been gone for over twenty years now, victim of a heart attack at 72. His daughter writes what seems a very fair and balanced account of her famous father's life and career, placing him rightly in the middle of that triad of great Jewish writers of the mid-twentieth century: Bellow, Malamud and Roth. There are many anecdotes here of other literary lights of the time, but she also pays attention to her father's hard-pressed childhood, his grocer father, and his mother and brother who both suffered from mental illness. Much is made of Malamud's single-minded dedication to his craft, born of his determination to rise above his roots and be know for his writing. In this he certainly succeeded, perhaps sometimes at his own family's expense. However, unlike Peggy Salinger's memoir of her famous father which left a kind of sour taste, Janna makes it very clear that she loved her father and never doubted his love for her either. She even seems to forgive him his affairs - which were news to me, of course. But she broke that unpleasant news in such a way that it didn't seem quite so awful as it might have. But this is also a memoir, and the author herself comes across well, as a child of the turbulent sixties, but one who turned out okay in the end. Janna Malamud Smith is a peron I'd like to meet. Most importantly, however, she has written a fine book which is a warm tribute to a father she admired and loved. I hope this book will help to introduce a new generation of readers to the wonderful books of Bernard Malamud. - Tim Bazzett, author of SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA

I've not read this book. And based on the reviews, I'm not sure I'd like to. Why is there a need for confessionals of infidelities and bad behavior in public? I am former student of Mr. Malamud's at Bennington College. He was my thesis advisor and my mentor. He read my fiction (I am a published novelist), he took me out to dinner, he came to my house for dinner, he came to my wedding, he wrote me letters. Mrs. Malamud was warm and charming. I even knew Mrs. Fidelman. But, what more could you ask of a teacher? He was a wonderful man, a wonderful teacher, a wonderful companion. An honor to have known him.