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Illustrated portrait of Effingham Swan

A character in It Can't Happen Here

Effingham Swan

Swan is an aristocratic, theatrical military judge who enjoys arbitrary authority.

The book

Cover of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen HereSinclair Lewis, 1935

An American dictatorship arrives through elections, promises, resentment, and a leader who insists only he can fix the country.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Swan is an aristocratic, theatrical military judge who enjoys arbitrary authority. He orders Fowler Greenhill’s execution in a fit of anger and presides over the regime’s local legal terror. Mary kills him by deliberately crashing her plane into his aircraft.

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