"Malcolm discusses the novelist's use of major twentieth-century historical events to shape and deform the lives of his characters; his focus on the distortions and evasions that characterize the discussion of personal, local, and national histories; and his fascination with the complexities, sufferings, and joys that mark individual lives. Malcolm suggests that despite Swift's dark vision of human suffering, he tempers his writing with an intermittent focus on that which can redeem our failures, our losses, and our cruelties."--BOOK JACKET.