?The Mourners? comes from Malamud?s National Book Award-winning collection The Magic Barrel about poor immigrant Jews ? grocers tailors janitors cobblers ? whose suffering transcends the particular to become universal.
Set in a cheap rooming house whose landlord and janitor join forces to evict a poor and aged Jewish tenant the story ends with Gruber the landlord morally transformed by the sight of his tenant?s misery.
As compassion replaces cruelty the two men mourn together. In Malamud?s reading the sudden descent of grace on the adversaries emerges with poignant force.
A Blackstone Audio production.
