Accuses both Bellow and Ozick of being rather too preoccupied with intellectual matters. Considers BC to be concerned with survival and memory and the preposterous luck by which we survive or die. Praises the story for its elegant shaping and compelling narrative strength. Complains that Bellow is too artificial, too little engaged with the telling, and overly schematic. Concludes that ultimately the book lacks both passion and compassion.

Sees BC as an extended meditation on the appropriate role of post-Auschwitz memory. In fact, remembering the Shoah becomes the litmus test of Jewish authenticity for seeking to survive as a Jew after Auschwitz. European Judaism, and American–Jewish culture are juxtaposed as are survivors and non-witnesses, gratitude and indifference, remembering and forgetting. BC is a richly crafted tale with a super character portrait in which Bellow underscore the deleterious impact on American culture on the issue of memory. Traces Bellow's previous protagonist' attempts to confront the Holocaust. Describes the three models of "witnessing" the novella provides, and shows Bellow himself coming full circle from ignorance to avoidance to acceptance. Details various characters and their remembering and forgetting. Describes the transitional understanding of Jewish history shared with Sorella. Concludes that in BC, Bellow notes that the roots of memory are in feelings and that remembering the past involves both man and God. What Bellow offers in place of a collective memorial ritual is a personal connection to a world-historical event. Memory theory is like a body without a soul, and family connections are the life force of memory. Bellow reminds us that if we forget the victims, they die twice.

A performance text which purports to be the transcript of a radio broadcast of "The Jewish American Show" in which the Host interviews one Samuel Wolf Rosenberg, in reality the famous Broadway Billy Rose. However, Billy Rose has now had a spiritual awakening due to heart surgery and has been ordained a rabbi. Among other matters, the two characters discuss how Bellow has portrayed Billy Rose in BC. In the course of this fictional interview, Bloom poses the ethical question of how much license a writer should be allowed in conforming history to the purposes of fiction. Also raises important ethical questions about Jewish America and the twin arts of writing history and fiction.

Argues that BC is concerned with the human condition of being advanced. Suggests that the book asks what it means to be an American if you are a Jew. Calls it a small dazzling pendant to AAM which comes to a mordant point that cuts into the first novel's optimism. Concludes that this novel is Bellow's late verdict on the assimilation of Jews into American culture.

Argues that in AT and BC Bellow eager to be bowled over by men and women who exhibit old world breeding or greatness of character in the ordinary sense, Describes the assortment of characters in both works from this perspective and concludes that Bellow's later short fiction demonstrates richness and the same jostling philosophical ambitition of the larger novels. Contains a detailed description of the contents of both works.

Details the plot and characters of BC. Believes the point of the book to be about emotional memory, and in particular, the memory of the heart. Sees Fonstein as emblematic of the NewYork avoidance syndrome, and points to Sorella's realization that Billy Rose is no longer alive because he has no emotional memory.

Argues that talk permeates the pages of Bellow's books and that, in this novella, the sound of his voice fills everything on the page like wind bellying a sail. Details the plot and comments that this is lesser Bellow. Concludes that despite its muffled ending it reflects a renewal after the crabbiness and lackadaisical manner of AT.

BC concerns the uses and abuses of memory: it is centrally about repression and denial. What the narrator refuses to remember or understand is the Holocaust, and this repressed material will return in his old age to haunt him, shattering his conception of himself. Ties this to Bellow's published admissions of his own repression and denial, his initial reluctance to confront the Holocaust. Ironically, though, what returns the narrator of BC to life and full humanity is remembering the Holocaust.

Argues that BC is about being Jewish in America. Gives an extensive plot summary and concludes that this is a crowded, unforgettable tale.

Details the plot and characters of BC and complains that it takes at least one third of the novel to determine that Sorella is the book's key character. Claims that the capacity for decisive, discriminatory action is characteristic late-period Bellow and contains a network of complexities. Concludes that the dominant note is elegiac.

Argues that the invention of Billy Rose in BC represents the first real historical personage to play a major role in his own name in Bellow's fiction, putting Bellow into a group of American fiction writers, including E. L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal, and William Styron, who imaginatively combine historically real people with fictional ones. Also comments on Bellow's exploratory foray into the genre of semihistorical fiction. Sees the book as the record of the narrator's belated attempt to rediscover the roots of genuine feeling in memory, as well as Bellow's revisiting of such grand old themes as the differences between new America and Old World Europe, the significance of memory to personal identity, the cultural and historical identity of the Jews, the fate of Jews in America, and the distractions of American life. Concludes that the book is also part of Bellow's continuing examination of himself as a Jewish writer and as a Jew in America.

Details the characters and story of BC, considering its subject and major theme to be Jewish memory, particularly the dilemma of how to survive as a Jew after Auschwitz.