A profoundly true image of human existence . . . This is the intense world of the ordinary, about to burst forth into the radiance of consciousness (The New York Times)What makes all of this so remarkable is not merely Bellow's eye and ear for vital detail. Nor is it his talent for exposing the innards of character in a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase. It is Bellow's vision, his uncanny ability to seize the moment and to see beyond it (Chicago Times)A small masterpiece...I enjoy Saul Bellow in his spreading carnivals and wonder at his energy (V.S. Pritchett)Bellow's pre-eminence rests not on sales figures and honorary degrees, not on rosettes and sashes, but on incontestable legitimacy. To hold otherwise is to waste your breath. Bellow sees more than we see - sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches... Bellow will emerge as the supreme American novelist. The only American who gives Bellow any serious trouble is Henry James (Martin Amis)Saul Bellow was a brilliant man, a master of English prose and supreme chronicler of modernity and its torments. (Ian McEwan)It is the special distinction of Mr. Bellow as a novelist that he is able to give us, step by step, the world we really live each day -- and in the same movement to show us that the real suffering of not understanding, the deprivation of light. It is this double gift that explains the unusual contribution he is making to our fiction (The New York Times)Saul Bellow was the American writer supreme . . . our most exuberant and melodious postwar novelist (John Updike)

Tommy Wilhelm has failed to make it big as an actor, left his family and lost his job. His successful father lectures him about changing his life. But he clings to the hope that his luck is about to turn and has given his last $700 to Dr Tamkin to invest.