The Assistant (1957, ISBN 0-374-50484-9) is Bernard Malamud's second novel. Set in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it explores the situation of first- and second-generation Americans in the early 1950s, as experienced by three main characters and the relationships between them: an aging Jewish refugee from Tsarist Russia who owns and operates a failing small grocery store, a young Italian American drifter trying to overcome a bad start in life by becoming the grocer's assistant, and the grocer's daughter, who becomes romantically involved with her father's assistant despite parental objections and misgivings of her own.