Saul Bellow’s semi-autobiographical novel Herzog, published 50 years ago, is an unforgettable account of the moral and intellectual ambiguities of modern and modern Jewish life.     

More than Saul Bellow or Philip Roth, James Salter (né Horowitz) captures the situation of assimilated American Jews—by never writing from a Jewish perspective.

“If you want to learn about life in 20th-century urban America, and the Jewish experience in particular, . . . Bellow’s work should be the first port of call.”