From Library Journal
Budick (American literature, Hebrew Univ.) has written a complex work on the vexing relationship between American and Jewish American writers during the last half of the century. Describing American culture as basically biracial, she discusses nonfiction and fiction to show the various readings and misreadings each community gives the other. Along the way, she illuminates many existing controversies and highlights the emotional and intellectual distress raised when people attempt to compare issues like the political meaning of American slavery with the Holocaust. Fiction by Malamud, Bellows, Roth, Morrison, Himes, and Walker are used as guideposts. As an Israeli Jew, Budick brings an added objectivity and sensitivity to the argument. An interesting study, mixing political, historical, and literary ideas; recommended for literature collections.?Gene Shaw, NYPLCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
"...Budick's book is a worthy addition to the quickly growing list of texts redefining the study of Black-Jewish relations." Jeffrey Melnick, American Studies

"Emily Budick begins this important book by challenging the cultural myth that in their struggle against social injustice, American Jews and blacks enjoyed a special alliance that went awry in the 1960s." Michael Nowlin, American Literature

"...the book eloquently voices a theme that runs throughout African American and Jewixh American relations...The most important contribution of Blacks and Jews in Literary Conversation lies in its thorough, thoughtful tracing of these dialogues as it works out, in essay form, the vicissitudes of black-Jewixh relations." Contemporary Literature


Book Description
In an attempt to lend a more nuanced ear to the ongoing dialogue between African and Jewish Americans, Emily Budick examines the works of a range of writers, critics, and academics from the 1950s through the 1980s. This study records conversations both explicit, such as essays and letters, and indirect, such as the fiction of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin. The purpose is to understand how this dialogue has engendered misperceptions and misunderstandings, and how blacks and Jews in America have both sought and resisted assimilation.


Card catalog description
"In an attempt to lend a more nuanced ear to the ongoing dialogue between African and Jewish Americans, Emily Budick examines the works of a range of writers, critics, and academics from the 1950s through the 1980s. Blacks and Jews in Literary Conversation records conversations both explicit, such as essays and letters, and indirect, such as the fiction of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison, and Saul Bellow. The purpose is to understand how this dialogue has engendered misconceptions and misunderstandings, and how blacks and Jews in America have both sought and resisted assimilation and ethnic autonomy."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In an attempt to lend a more nuanced ear to the ongoing dialogue between African and Jewish Americans, Emily Budick examines the works of a range of writers, critics, and academics from the 1950s through the 1980s. Blacks and Jews in Literary Conversation records conversations both explicit, such as essays and letters, and indirect, such as the fiction of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison, and Saul Bellow. The purpose is to understand how this dialogue has engendered misconceptions and misunderstandings, and how blacks and Jews in America have both sought and resisted assimilation and ethnic autonomy.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal