The fiftieth anniversary of a lost classica deceptively sophisticated tale of sexual compulsion and one man’s flight from love Yasha Mazur is a Houdini-like performer whose skill has made him famous throughout eastern Poland. Half Jewish, half Gentile, a freethinker who slips easily between worlds, Yasha has an observant Jewish wife, a Gentile assistant who travels with him, and a mistress in every town. For Yasha is an escape artist not only onstage but in life, a man who lives under the spell of his own hypnotic effect on women. Now, though, his exploits are catching up with him, and he is tempted to make one final escapefrom his wife and his homeland and the last tendrils of his father’s religion. Set in Warsaw and the shtetls of the 1870sbut first published in 1960Isaac Bashevis Singer’s second novel hides a haunting psychological portrait inside a beguiling parable. At its heart, this is a book about the burden of sexual freedom. As such, it belongs on a small shelf with such mid-century classics as Rabbit, Run ; The Adventures of Augie March ; and The Moviegoer . As Milton Hindus wrote in The New York Times Book Review , The pathos of the ending may move the reader to tears, but they are not sentimental tears . . . [Singer] is a writer of far greater than ordinary powers.”

艾萨克·巴什维斯·辛格（Isaac Bashevis Singer，1904-1991），美国著名犹太裔作家，先后创作长篇小说《莫斯卡特一家》，《庄园》，《农庄》等。短片小说《羽毛的王冠》，《短片小说集》，《意象集》等。其中1978年《卢布林的魔术师》获得当年诺贝尔文学奖。

辛格15岁开始文学创作，曾先后两次获美国全国图书奖，多次获得美国其他文学奖金。他一生共创作30余部作品。辛格“因为他的充满激情的叙事艺术，这种艺术既扎根于波兰犹太人的文化传统，又反映了人类的普遍处境”。

作品中的丰富成语和活泼语句受到评论界高度赞扬，认为那是任何译文都无法传达的。