Enemies, A Love Story

by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Author), Roy Chen (Author)

Set in New York City in 1949, ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY tells the story of Herman Broder, a Holocaust survivor who was hidden in a hayloft and cared for by his Polish servant, Yadwiga during World War II. Now in America, Herman marries Yadwiga while engaging in an affair with Masha, another Holocaust survivor.

Herman poses as a traveling book salesman to Yadwiga while working as a ghostwriter for a corrupt rabbi. He is filled with constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife Tamara—who he believed had died in the Holocaust—turns out to have survived and makes her way to America to find him. Herman, drawn to each woman, marries Masha, lives with Tamara, and fathers a child with Yadwiga, until all length, the three women learn the truth about one another.

Each of the women proposes a solution to Herman’s dilemma. But there is no solution for him. Living in a web of lies, Herman continues tormented by both the past and the present.