The Victim

By Saul Bellow

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Saul Bellow's second novel, published in 1947, is set in New York City during a sweltering summer. Asa Leventhal, an editor at a trade magazine whose wife is away, is confronted by Kirby Allbee, a down-and-out acquaintance who accuses Leventhal of causing his ruin. As Allbee moves into his life, Leventhal must deal with questions of guilt, responsibility and antisemitism.

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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.”