[Wallant] pushes aside the glittering surfaces of modern society to write of the terror, suffering and mystery buried within. [The Human Season] describes one man's confrontation with the fact of death; although it states Wallant's major theme, the dilemma of the individual faced with the problem of evil, it contains little suggestion of the expanded historical and social dimensions created in the later three novels. A tragic chorus of the defeated, frustrated, helpless outcasts of society frequents Sol Nazerman's pawnshop, enters the hospital in Children at the Gate, and inhabits Norman Moonbloom's tenements. These unfortunates poignantly dramatize the ills of contemporary society, yet in the novels they function more as indices of the hero's development and his state of mind; the social and historical context derives its importance from its profound effects upon Wallant's primary interest, the individual's inner life.

The central character, therefore, dominates each of Wallant's...