Norman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan. Making his rounds from apartment to apartment, Moonbloom confronts a wildly varied assortment of brilliantly described urban characters, among them a gay jazz musician with a sideline as a gigolo, a Holocaust survivor, and a brilliant young black writer modeled on James Baldwin. Moonbloom hears their cries of outrage and abuse; he learns about their secret sorrows and desires. And as he grows familiar with their stories, he finds that he is drawn, in spite of his best judgment, into a desperate attempt to improve their lives.
Edward Lewis Wallant's astonishing comic tour de force is a neglected masterpiece of 1960s America.
- ISBN10 0575012447
- ISBN13 9780575012448
- Publish Date December 1964
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 18 October 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Littlehampton Book Services Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English