Concise, Literate
Bernard Malamud wrote The Assistant in a clear and concise style, conservative with details. Like Graham Greene, another writer with religion on his mind, Malamud explored complex moral and spiritual matters with simple prose and a character-driven plot. Look at how he depicts a state of guilt-induced panic, and note the blend of mental confusion and mental clarity:
Frank got up on the run but he had run everywhere. There was no place left to escape to. The room shrank. The bed was flying up at him. He felt trapped—sick, he wanted to cry but couldn't. He planned to kill himself, at the same minute had a terrifying insight: that all the while he was acting like he wasn't, he was really a man of stern morality. (7.2.7)
Malamud was also a master of capturing the idiosyncrasies and particularities of everyday speech. Morris Bober, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, talks in a way that suggests English is not his primary language: "Where in the neighborhood lives your sister?" he asks Frank when they first meet (2.2.36). "Rest I will take in my grave," Morris tells his wife (2.2.5). "What's the matter you stay home so much lately?" he asks his daughter, Helen (1.4.54). Morris speaks English just fine, but his syntax—the order of his words—is a little out of the ordinary, as if he's used to another grammar. Russian grammar, perhaps?