Also in this novel I. B. Singer explores the abysmal complexity of love. HermanHerman Broder, the novel's protagonist, is a Holocaust survivor who lives in New York alternately with his wife, Jadwiga, a Polish woman, and his lover, Masha. He is unable to leave either of them: partly out of love, partly because of his indecision and passivity, but also because he married his wife Jadwiga, in fact, out of gratitude, because she helped him save his life during the war. The situation escalates when Herman's first wife Tamara, whom he has believed for many years to have been murdered along with her children during the Holocaust, arrives from Europe.
Czech edition