The Fixer (novel)

The Fixer is a novel by Bernard Malamud published in 1966 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction (his second)[1] and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[2]

For other uses, see The Fixer (disambiguation).
The Fixer (novel)
First edition
AuthorBernard Malamud
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherFarrar, Straus & Giroux
Publication date
1966
Media typePrint
Preceded byIdiots First (1963) 
Followed byPictures of Fidelman (1969) 

The Fixer provides a fictionalized version of the Beilis case. Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Jew unjustly imprisoned in Tsarist Russia. The "Beilis trial" of 1913 caused an international uproar and Beilis was acquitted by a jury.

The book was adapted into a 1968 film of the same name starring Alan Bates (Yakov Bok) who received an Oscar nomination.

Plagiarism controversy

Descendants of Mendel Beilis have long argued that in writing The Fixer, Malamud plagiarized from the 1926 English edition of Beilis's memoir, The Story of My Sufferings. One of Beilis's sons made such claims in correspondence to Malamud when The Fixer was first published. A 2011 edition of Beilis's memoir, co-edited by one of his grandsons, claims to identify 35 instances of plagiarism by Malamud.[3]

Responding to the allegations of plagiarism made by Beilis's descendants, Malamud's biographer Philip Davis acknowledged "some close verbal parallels" between Beilis's memoir and Malamud's novel. Davis argued, however, "When it mattered most, [Malamud's] sentences offered a different dimension and a deeper emotion."[4]

Jewish Studies scholar Michael Tritt has characterized the relationship between Malamud's The Fixer and Beilis's The Story of My Sufferings as one of "indebtedness and innovation".[5]

Censorship

The book was one of several removed from school libraries by the board of education of the Island Trees Union Free School District in New York, which was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1982.[6]

In 2022, a school district in South Carolina removed the book from its library because of a parental complaint lodged against dozens of books. In 2023, after a review, the book was returned to the library.[7] The book is still listed on a conservative site as a book that should be of concern to parents with a rating of "minor restricted."[8]

In episode 7 of Mad Men Season 5, the character Don Draper is seen reading the novel in bed and recommending it to his wife Megan.

References
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Fixer (novel).
  1. "National Book Awards – 1967". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-30.
    (With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
  2. "Fiction". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-30.
  3. Beilis, Mendel. Blood Libel: The Life and Memory of Mendel Beilis, ed. Jay Beilis et al. (2011)
  4. Davis, Philip. Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life (2007), pp. 241–43
  5. Tritt, Michael. "Mendel Beilis's The Story of My Sufferings and Malamud's The Fixer: A Study of Indebtedness and Innovation", Modern Jewish Studies 13, no. 4 (Summer, 2004), p. 70
  6. "Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico 457 U.S. 853 (1982)". Justia. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  7. Lapin, Andrew (August 15, 2023). "'Persecution of Jews is educationally significant': How a school district put a contested classic back on the shelves". The Jewish News of Northern California. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
  8. "The Fixer" (PDF). BookLooks,org. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
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