Atlas, James, Bellow: A Biography, Random House, 2000.

This is a major literary biography, ten years in the making, by an important analyst of the literary scene.

Glaysher, Frederick, "A Poet Looks at Saul Bellow's Soul," in Saul Bellow and the Struggle at the Center, edited by Eugene Houlahan, AMS Press, 1996, pp. 43—55.

Since the split between spiritual traditions of Christianity and Judaism is so much a part of the life of this story's protagonist, readers may enjoy Glaysher's examination of matters usually deemed too spiritual for literary criticism.

Kiernan, Robert F., Saul Bellow, Continuum Publishing, 1989.

Kiernan is one of the few critics to devote several pages to this specific short story.

Porter, Gilbert, Whence the Power? The Artistry and Humanity of Saul Bellow, University of Missouri Press, 1974.

When this book was published, Bellow had already been an important figure in American literature for two decades...