To understand Malamud, one must read closely his short stories…. Most of them portray poverty-stricken people living in New York or Brooklyn, and Malamud writes of misery with calm poignancy. (p. 218)

What Malamud is always asking himself is how people live with great misery. Some of his people are crushed by it, but most survive, through hope or pride or sheer fortitude. The best, moreover, learn to be compassionate, and compassion is, for Malamud, the first of the virtues. (p. 219)

As almost always with a novel based on a myth or a legend, the reader [of The Natural] is distracted by the effort he has to make to follow the author's intentions, but if the book is not completely successful, there is much to be said for it.

There is no difficulty in evaluating Malamud's second novel, The Assistant (1957); it is one of the strongest and finest novels...