A review by blacklake
The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud

4.0

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. There is a Jewish element to most of them. Malamud is generous with his ideas and characters--I can easily imagine any one of these expanded to a novel, and I admire how he is able to resolve each story enough to mean something, but to leave it open-ended enough to keep me thinking. All I knew about the author was that he'd written "The Natural"--this book made me want to find out more.