Aside from his memoir of the time he spent in the Special Forces in Vietnam, which one critic described as Wolff's record "of his sense of futility and growing disillusionment with the war," Wolff's writing does not focus on specific social issues. In accordance with his primary interest in the dimensions of a particular character, he tends to show how a person is affected by the demands of the world in which he or she lives. While operating from a definite moral base which becomes more apparent within the context of a group of stories, Wolff tends toward a sympathetic understanding of his character's deficiencies and is more intrigued than irritated by the failures of a social system. In discussing John Cheever, Wolff says "he was one of my masters" because of his "rejection of that easy cynicism that so many writers display as a sign...