Based on a true story,
The Fixer is the story of a Russian Jew who, in the early 1900s, is unjustly accused of murdering a Christian boy. Bernard Malamud’s 1966 novel won both the
Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Award.
Yakov Bok has a hard luck life as a handyman, or fixer, in the
Jewish Pale of Settlement. Although political reforms following the 1905 revolution gave Jews new freedoms and political clout, life in the Pale had not improved. After his childless wife abandons him for a
goy, Yakov leaves the
shtetl for Kiev, where he ends up working in, and living above, a Christian-owned brick factory. With an assumed name, no papers to allow him to live in that part of the city, and anti-Jewish sentiments on the rise, Yakov is headed for trouble.
When the mutilated body of a neighborhood boy is found stuffed in a cave, the evidence – circumstantial and fabricated – mounts against Yakov. He is arrested and left to rot in prison while the sham investigation drags on for years as anti-Semitic authorities try to build a case of ritual murder. With no indictment, no lawyer, and no idea of what is to come, Yakov’s situation is a downward spiral of gloom. Yakov is motivated by his dwindling hope of exoneration, only meagerly spurred on by a few rare contacts with the outside and tidbits of news about his case. Although claiming to be non-religious and non-political, Yakov worries that his case will spark violent retribution or even a new
pogrom against the Jews.
Malamud incorporates Yakov’s tragedy into the larger picture by having characters discuss Russia’s anti-Semitic history and Tsarist politics. It is this contextual detail that raises Yakov’s story above that of one individual’s tribulations and makes it a morality tale about freedom and responsibility in the face of evil and suffering. One of the characters explains Malmud’s thesis:
I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. Once often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempts to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small thing to offer – he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.
Or, as Yakov put it more succinctly as he was finally being taken to his trial, “[T]here’s no such thing as an unpolitical man, especially a Jew.”
Malamud is an incredible writer. Even though this story is horribly grim, he grabs the reader and does not let go.
The Fixer is a book that everyone should read and, once read, ponder.
NOTES
This book was my "double dipper" choice for the
Battle of the Prizes Challenge. i
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Quality beat out quantity last week, with only two books making it to my Mailbox Monday list. But both additions are pretty exciting, at least in a book-geeky sort of way.
The first is the latest from Powell's IndieSpensible program: A signed, first edition ofInto the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. This one is a shot in the dark for me, because I had not heard of this author. The novel is about a 19-year-old girl from a remote Mexican village who heads for America with friends in order to bring back her father and some other men to repopulate the village and protect it from banditos. Sounds great!
As always, the IndieSpensible box packed a few other goodies. There was an "author's card" from Jessica Anthony, author of The Convalescent. Think oversized, hipster trading card, signed by the featured author. There was a beautifully hand-bound edition of a Portland lit journal called Poor Claudia, signed by all the contributing poets. Is there some kind of conspiracy to get me to read poetry? And, finally, there was a Powell's Books pint glass. Alcohol may help my poetry comprehension.
I am even more excited by the second book: Plum Sauce: A P. G. Wodehouse Companion by Richard Usborne. I've had my eye on this for quite a while and finally had Broadway Books special order it for me, using some of my contest winnings from Reading Local. Book Psmith is going to want a copy of this one!
