The Actual

By Saul Bellow

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Saul Bellow's 1997 novella is narrated by Harry Trellman, a quiet, observant retired businessman in Chicago who is hired as a kind of adviser by Sigmund Adletsky, an elderly billionaire. Through Adletsky, Harry meets again Amy Wustrin, the woman he has loved since high school. Now both in their sixties, they must decide whether, after so many years, it is too late for love.

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• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”