Man vs. Madness

Recently I read Bernard Malamud‘s 1966 novel The Fixer, set in Russia in 1911. In it Yakov Bok is wrongly accused of killing a young boy and is jailed without a trial or benefit of legal defense – because his real “crime” is being a Jew. The Fixer is a fine, grim novel that made [...]

That Thing They Do

A few years ago, on the day my older daughter graduated from elementary school, her teacher had a picnic for the students and their families. There were a couple of days of fifth grade left still, but the year’s lessons had clearly come to an end, and during the picnic the teacher asked for suggestions [...]