Seize the Day

Not usually considered a Hollywood novella per se, Bellow’s “small grey masterpiece” (V.S. Pritchett) tracks failed actor Tommy Wilhelm on a dark Manhattan day when his luck and his money run out.

This book is at once a tender portrait of failure and a searing indictment of the false promises America makes to the gullible. Along the way, Tommy recalls his one and only screen role—as a Hollywood extra, he briefly appeared barelegged in a kilt, pretending to blow bagpipes—just one more humiliation in a string of let-downs. By day’s end, Tommy goes face to face with humanity in a… show more.

I grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. We lived above an all-purpose drugstore that included two aisles of paperback books.

Almost every day after school, that store became my own personal library. If were attracted by a particular title or cover, it would wind up in my to-buy list.

Seize the Day was one of those books. The protagonist is the hapless Tommy Wilhelm, a small-time loser who spends his life trying to impress his big-shot father (think Willie Loman only less successful).

Desperately trying to make something of himself that his father can be proud of, Wilhelm gets… show more.