Frank Alpine, an Italian -American drifter on the run from his past, stumbles into the orbit of struggling Brooklyn grocer Morris Bober.  Seeing a chance to atone for his sins, Frank becomes Bober's stock boy and runs the store when the owner takes ill.  But it is Bober's daughter , Helen , who gives Frank a real reason to turn his life around.  Considered one of the greastest Jewish novels ever written.  The Assistant is a classic look at social and racial divides of America in the early twentieth century.  Filled with riveting scenes of life on the edge, this is an enduring story of how love and the human spirit can triumph over any adversity.