The Original Amateur

by Judith P. Salzman

Not long after the Hurricane of 1938, New England was swept by a flood of another sort-a tide of rising anti-Semitism. Morris Schlossberg, an unmarried pharmacist and amateur singer in Providence, RI, cannot stand by and watch; he infiltrates a local German Bund group and reports back to the fictional American Jews for Democracy. His double life throws unexpected challenges in his path: loyalty to family, faith and self. The Original Amateur is a wise and emotionally resonant novel, one that eerily parallels much of what is happening in our world today.In the The Original Amateur Judy Salzman has taken a deeply serious subject-anti-semitism in the United States on the eve of World War II-and an unlikely hero-the pharmacist Morris-and written a beautifully vivid, often humorous, always suspenseful novel. Her wonderful details, her acute sense of family life, and her fidelity to her characters, transport her reader to 1930s Providence and the world of the Schlossbergs' pharmacy. I could taste Ma's poppyseed cake and Rose's burnt coffee. The result is an absorbing novel in which the reader can't help but cheer for Morris on every page.-Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1483969983
• ISBN13: 9781483969985
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"