The Victim (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)

Product Description Bellow's second novel charts the descent into paranoia of Asa Leventhal, sub-editor of a trade magazine. With his wife away visiting her mother, Asa is alone, but not for long. His sister-in-law summons him to Staten Island to help with his sick nephew. Other demands mount, and readers witness a man losing control. About the Author Saul Bellow (1915-2005) wrote thirteen novels and numerous novellas and stories in his lifetime. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. Norman Rush is the author of the novel Mating , which won the National Book Award, as well as the novel Mortals and the short story collection Whites . In this unique noir masterpiece by the incomparable Saul Bellow, a young man is sucked into the mysterious, heat-filled vortex of New York City. Asa Leventhal, a temporary bachelor with his wife away on a visit to her mother, attempts to find relief from a Gotham heat wave, only to be accosted in the park by a down-at-the-heels stranger who accuses Leventhal of ruining his life. Unable to shake the stranger loose, Leventhal is led by his own self-doubts and suspicions into a nightmare of paranoia and fear. -- Publisher description In this unique noir masterpiece by the incomparable Saul Bellow, a young man is sucked into the mysterious, heat-filled vortex of New York City. Asa Leventhal, a temporary bachelor with his wife away on a visit to her mother, attempts to find relief from a Gotham heat wave, only to be accosted in the park by a down-at-the-heels stranger who accuses Leventhal of ruining his life. Unable to shake the stranger loose, Leventhal is led by his own self-doubts and suspicions into a nightmare of paranoia and fear."--Amazon "Asa Leventhal ... is accosted in a park near his home by a down-at-the-heels stranger who accuses him of ruining his life ... Leventhal gradually succumbs to the man's story and comes to believe that he has, in fact, caused the man irreparable damage ... [he] descends into a nightmare of paranoia and fear"--P. [4] of cover.