The Pawnbroker

Blurb

The Pawnbroker is a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant which tells the story of Sol Nazerman, a concentration camp survivor who suffers flashbacks of his past Nazi imprisonment as he tries to cope with his daily life operating a pawn shop in East Harlem. It was adapted into a motion picture by Sidney Lumet.
Nazerman is a bulky man, 45 years old, who before the war had been a professor at the University of Cracow. He has dealt with his trauma by deliberately shutting down his emotions, with the result that he sees everyone around him, especially the desperate people who come into his shop, as "scum." Nazerman is plagued by nightmares and headaches stemming from the physical and mental trauma of his wartime experiences, in which his wife was forced into prostitution and his son drowned in the excrement of a cattle car on the way to the concentration camp.
Having lost his family in the camps, Sol now lives with his sister Bertha in the suburb of Mt. Vernon. She has married a mid-westerner and prizes her American-looking blonde haired daughter over her Jewish looking son. He is also taking care of his best friend's widow, Tessie, and her dying father, Mendel.