The Victim

The Victim is a novel by Saul Bellow published in 1947. As in much of Bellow's fiction, the protagonist is a Jewish man in early middle age. Leventhal lives in New York City. While his wife is away on family business, Leventhal is haunted by an old acquaintance who unjustly claims that Leventhal has been the cause of his misfortune. The story explores the men's evolving relationship, all while Leventhal is struggling to deal with his own family problems. Plot summary Asa Leventhal's wife Mary has left the city for a few weeks in order to help her elderly mother move from Baltimore to her old family home in the South. While she is away, Leventhal must take on many tasks of caring for himself which his wife would ordinarily undertake for him. The action of the story begins when Leventhal is at his job as a copy-editor and receives a frantic phone call from his sister-in-law. She tells him that his nephew is terribly ill and that she desperately needs his assistance. During their conversation we learn that Asa's brother Max is a negligent husband and father who has practically abandoned his wife and two sons for itinerant work in Texas. His family subsists on the money he sends to them.