The First Seven Years

“The First Seven Years” is a short story that Bernard Malamud originally published in 1950. The story subsequently appeared in several collections, including The Magic Barrel, which won the 1959 National Book Award for fiction. Malamud’s exploration of the complications of the American Dream for immigrants and the aftermath of the Holocaust make the story an important contribution to American Jewish literature of the twentieth century. This guide is based on the short story as it appears in Library of America’s print edition of Bernard Malamud: Novels and Stories of the 1940s & 1950s (2014).

Set in New York during the late 1940s, “The First Seven Years” opens with Feld, a struggling shoemaker, watching Max, a college student, walk to class through the snow. Feld wants Max to date Miriam, a clerk and Feld’s independent-minded daughter who spends her evenings reading books given to her by Sobel, a refugee and Holocaust survivor who serves as Feld’s assistant. Feld believes marrying an educated man like Max is the next best thing to going to college since Miriam isn’t interested her father’s dream of her pursuing higher education. Miriam believes reading books, especially those Sobel gives to her, is enough of an education.

Feld gets his chance to set the two up on a date when Max comes in for a shoe repair one day as Feld and Sobel are working. After awkwardly agreeing to give Max a discounted rate on the repair, Feld pulls Max aside to ask if he is interested in dating Miriam. Max agrees to the date only after seeing a photo that shows Miriam to be attractive enough for his taste and assurances from Feld that Miriam is level-headed. When Feld comes back to the workspace in the store, Sobel breaks the last shoe form and rushes out of the store angrily, much to Feld’s shock.

Losing Sobel as an assistant is a blow to Feld. Sobel first began to work for Feld five years before when Feld had a heart attack, a health setback that made it almost impossible for Feld to keep his store. Sobel, a recent refugee from Feld’s native Poland, agreed to work for almost nothing and became a skilled shoemaker and trustworthy assistant. Over the years, Feld attempts to give Sobel a greater salary and asks Sobel why he does not set up his own shop, but Sobel always refuses to explain. Feld assumes Sobel’s reluctance is because the experience of surviving the Holocaust has made Sobel “afraid of the world” (Paragraph 25).

The last time Sobel left in a huff, it was over Feld’s request that Sobel stop lending Miriam his books; Feld has an inkling of some connection between Miriam and Sobel, making him hesitant to send Miriam to convince Sobel to come back to the shop this time. Unable to bring himself to ask Sobel to return, Feld begins to have heart troubles again, and he is forced to hire a new assistant.

During the weeks after Sobel’s departure, Miriam goes on several dates with Max. Miriam is noncommittal after the first date. After the second date, she tells her father that she will not see Max again because Max is boring and materialistic. When Max comes to pick up his shoes, he has nothing to say about Miriam and seems only excited about the refurbished shoes. Feld is unhappy about this outcome; his day gets even worse when he discovers his new assistant has been stealing from him. Feld has a heart attack that night.

Three weeks later, Feld is forced to seek out Sobel at his spartan boardinghouse room. Sobel reveals he will never return because Feld has slighted him by not seeing him as a potential husband for Miriam. Feld is shocked by this profession of love from a man who is 35 to Miriam’s 19. Feld realizes that Sobel has been courting Miriam all this time by passing his books, which are riddled with his margin notes, to Miriam. Feld tells the man he is too old and homely for his daughter, and Sobel breaks down in tears.

Feld is moved to pity by the man’s despair. He recognizes all Sobel has survived to come to America, only to be denied the one thing he wants—a life with Miriam. Feld apologizes to Sobel for calling him ugly once he realizes that the repugnance he feels is for the idea of the life Miriam will have with a poor, broken man like Sobel. Feld’s “dreams of a better life” (Paragraph 89) for his daughter die in that instant as he comes to terms with the idea that Sobel and his daughter will marry. He makes one request: Sobel must wait for two more years before courting Miriam, who will be 21 by then. Sobel, who has already worked five years for Feld, is in the store the next morning, “pounding leather for his love” (Paragraph 93).