''The Fixer'' is a novel by Bernard Malamud published in 1966 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction (his second)"National Book Awards – 1967"
National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-30.
(With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) and the

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

."Fiction"
''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-30. ''The Fixer'' provides a fictionalized version of the Beilis case. Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Jew unjustly imprisoned in

Tsarist Russia Tsarist Russia may refer to: * Grand Duchy of Moscow (1480–1547) *Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721) *Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of ...

. The "Beilis trial" of 1913 caused an international uproar and Beilis was acquitted by a jury. The book was adapted into a 1968 film of the same name starring

Alan Bates Sir Alan Arthur Bates (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children's story '' Whistle Down the Wind'' to the " kitchen sink" dram ...

(Yakov Bok) who received an Oscar nomination.

Plagiarism controversy

Descendants of Mendel Beilis have long argued that in writing ''The Fixer'', Malamud plagiarized from the 1926 English edition of Beilis's memoir, ''The Story of My Sufferings''. One of Beilis's sons made such claims in correspondence to Malamud when ''The Fixer'' was first published. A 2011 edition of Beilis's memoir, co-edited by one of his grandsons, claims to identify 35 instances of plagiarism by Malamud. Responding to the allegations of plagiarism made by Beilis's descendants, Malamud's biographer Philip Davis acknowledged "some close verbal parallels" between Beilis's memoir and Malamud's novel. Davis argued, however, "When it mattered most, alamud'ssentences offered a different dimension and a deeper emotion." Jewish Studies scholar Michael Tritt has characterized the relationship between Malamud's ''The Fixer'' and Beilis's ''The Story of My Sufferings'' as one of "indebtedness and innovation".

Censorship

The book was one of several removed from school libraries by the board of education of the Island Trees Union Free School District in New York, which was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1982. In 2022, a school district in South Carolina removed the book from its library because of a parental complaint lodged against dozens of books. In 2023, after a review, the book was returned to the library. The book is still listed on a conservative site as a book that should be of concern to parents with a rating of "minor restricted."

In popular culture

In episode 7 of ''Mad Men'' Season 5, the character Don Draper is seen reading the novel in bed and recommending it to his wife Megan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fixer, The 1966 American novels 1966 controversies 1982 controversies in the United States Novels about antisemitism Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning works Jews and Judaism in the Russian Empire American novels adapted into films Novels by Bernard Malamud Novels set in Ukraine Novels set in Kyiv Novels set in the Russian Empire National Book Award for Fiction winning works Farrar, Straus and Giroux books Novels involved in plagiarism controversies Censored books