Weidman, Jerome

(US 1913–98)

Of Jewish descent, Weidman was born in New York, where he graduated in law and worked in the garment industry in the 1930s. Begin with the slangy realism and hard-hitting dialogue of I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1937), arguably his best novel. Set like most of his fiction in New York, it concerns aruthlessly ambitious clothing manufacturer. The Enemy Camp (1958) tells of a Jewish accountant's confrontations with institutionalized anti-Semitism. Other People's Money (1968) uses the formula of triumph over adversity common to a number of Weidman's novels. Its hero, Victor Smith, orphaned by the sinking of the Lusitania and adopted by his father's boss, overcomes family rivalries to achieve business success. In The Sound of Bow Bells (1962), Sam Silver, a successful writer of magazine stories, undergoes a crisis over the quality of his work and the shabbiness of his personal life.

Saul Bellow, Philip Roth  DH