In The 28th Day of Elul and Lilo's Diary Richard Elman achieved something rare in novels today: a probing self-revelation of character combined with a powerful recreation of historical truth. His achievement greatly increases with The Reckoning, in which he explores the world of pre-war Eastern European Jewry, on the edge of the Nazi holocaust. The central figure is Newman Yagodah, a man of substance living in Hungary in 1944. He is a complex man-intelligent, duplicitous, concerned with his family and his position in the town of Clig, and finding human closeness only with his mistress. Above all, he is searchingly, painfully honest with himself, and that is what gives the novel its extraordinary quality. Newman Yagodah speaks of his political and financial theories; he looks back on his life, to the young wife he married for money and yet with love; and he movingly recounts his affair with his mistress Ileana. While his days move toward disaster, he reveals himself in this reckoning of accounts, his maneuvers and deceptions and his suffering. The result is a character wholly realized and exposed, who fascinates the reader because he is altogether human. Newman Yagodah lived in Clig, Hungary, in 1944; but he lives everywhere.