Who is the victim here?

Is it the journalist Asa Leventhal, who has navigated the trials of life to secure a good position at a newspaper and now sees his hard-earned comforts, inner peace, and balance shaken by the unexpected bitter accusations of a long-forgotten acquaintance who has suddenly resurfaced? Or is it Allbee, the man in tattered clothes with a face swollen from alcohol, who repeatedly confronts Leventhal and blames him for his misfortunes? Although Leventhal knows that Allbee is responsible for his own fate, he begins to doubt. How complicit is one person in the misfortune of another? This is the question posed by Dostoevsky, the age-old Cain and Abel question, a fundamental inquiry of humanity.

As Allbee settles into Leventhal's well-kept apartment, bringing chaos and unrest, making ever new demands of his victim, and robbing him of all peace of mind, this desperate struggle for guilt and innocence becomes a nightmare for Leventhal from which there initially seems to be no awakening. The reader experiences this in a brilliantly composed, incredibly gripping novel that brought Saul Bellow his first international recognition.