SOURCE: "Understanding Fathers in American Jewish Fiction," in The Centennial Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Summer, 1974, pp. 273-87.

In the following essay, Gollin argues that "the Jewish father remains at the moral center of Jewish fiction" even if he is not typically at its narrative center.

I

A widespread misapprehension about fathers and mothers in American Jewish fiction hides from us some profound truths about their roles as apprehended by that fiction. Harold Fish's recent statement in Midstream is representative: he speaks of "the rejection of the father," and says that his replacement "by the Jewish mother is in a way the most important event in twentieth century Jewish life and letters." But the truth is much more complicated than Fish's statement implies. Fathers in recent American Jewish fiction are never finally rejected, and Jewish mothers do not replace them. Whether the father plays a major or a minor...