The Magic Barrel

Nineteen-year-old George Stoyonovich, a high school dropout ashamed of his lack of a summer job, tells a neighbor that he is using the summer months to educate himself by reading 100 books. The neighbor, middle-aged Mr. Cattanzara, works as a cashier at an IRT station and is an avid reader. Every evening, he reads the entire New York Times from front to back. Sometimes George sees him walking home drunk, his eyes wet. George, who reads nothing but magazines and the odd newspaper, impulsively tells Cattanzara the lie about the books because he wants his kindly neighbor to respect him. As the days pass, other neighbors become friendlier and more respectful to George, and he guesses that Cattanzara has told them about his ambitious reading plans. He begins to feel better about his neighborhood, which he has never liked very much. George’s older sister has also heard the rumors and shows her new pride in him with small acts of kindness, such as giving him some of her hard-earned money. Occasionally George uses it to buy paperback novels from the newsstand, but he never gets around to reading them, since books with “stories” always lose his interest.

Because of his lie, George now feels awkward around Cattanzara and tries to avoid him, but this does not go unnoticed.