SOURCE: "The Indigenous Berserk," in New Republic. Vol. 217, No. 4303, July 7, 1997, pp. 36-41.

[In the following review Boyers comments on Roth's examination of moral virtues, decency, and American society in his novel American Pastoral.]

In Philip Roth's new novel, his alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, alludes in passing to a once famous writer now largely forgotten, whose "sense of virtue is too narrow" for contemporary readers. The writer, no doubt about it, is Bernard Malamud. And what is it that passes for virtue in Malamud? In The Assistant, a grim and slender novel, the Jewish groceryman is eulogized as "a man that never stopped working … to make a living for his family," a man who "worked so hard and bitter," so that for his family there was "always something to eat." Morris Bober was "a good provider," the rabbi says, and, "besides," he was "honest." He assumed responsibilities. He showed...