As a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy in the late ‘60’s, I occasionally found myself in the theater at Arnold Hall, the cadet social center, not necessarily to watch a film, but just to escape the madness of a particular day or week. One afternoon, I went to the theater and the screen opened to a film called “The Fixer.” It grabbed me from the beginning and held me attentively captive for over two hours. The following summer, I found the book in our home library in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills. Just a year or two earlier, it earned its author, Bernard Malamud the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is as fine a tale of human redemption as any.
Forty some years later, I sat in the quiet of the Redemptorist chapel early this morning and read a remarkable short story of brotherhood in which the late Mr. Malamud held his course to show how even the most difficult circumstances can be conquered by the most unlikely of heroes. The name of the short story that Mr. Malamud wrote in 1955, a dozen years before he wrote The Fixer is “Angel Levine.” I suppose the fact that I fiercely believe in angels has something to do why I was so taken by this story.
I include a link here that presents the complete story. For those of you who are apt to be skeptical of this recommendation, read on and I present the opening paragraph and the concluding words. I hope you will take the time to read Bernard Malamud’s “Angel Levine.”
