The Pawnbroker

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For most of us, remembering the Holocaust requires effort; we listen to stories, watch films, read histories. The people who came to be called survivors,” on the other hand, could not avoid their memories. Sol Nazerman, protagonist of Edward Lewis Wallant'sThe Pawnbroker, is one such sufferer. Nazerman runs a pawnshop in Harlem. But the operation is only a front for a gangster, Murillio, who pays Nazerman a comfortable salary for his services. Nazerman thus supports his sister's suburban family, though their middle-class aspirations repulse him. Well-meaning people reach out to Nazerman, but he rebuffs them. His dreams are haunted by visions of his past tortures. (Dramatizations of these scenes in Sidney Lumet's 1964 film version are famous for being the first time the extermination camps were depicted in a Hollywood movie.) Remarkable for its attempts to dramatize the aftereffects of the Holocaust, The Pawnbroker is likewise valuable as an exploration of the fraught relationships between Jews and other American minority groups. That this novel, nominated for the National Book Award, manages to be funny, as well as weighty, makes it all the more tragic that its talented author died, at age 36, the year after its publication.