Roth Unbound

September 2, 2013
In 2012, acclaimed novelist Philip Roth famously declared that he was retiring, sending shudders of disbelief through the literary world. Drawing on conversations with Roth and featuring insightful close readings of his entire oeuvre, longtime New Yorker staff writer Pierpont (Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World) offers a dazzling chronicle that traces moments from the author’s life and explores the “life of his art.” Pierpont develops the story of Roth’s writing chronologically, summarizing the plots and critical reception of each of his many novels, from Goodbye, Columbus (1959) to Nemesis (2010). For example, “When She was Good is a book as harsh and plain as the world that Roth depicts.... Roth was no longer standing outside the ‘Americans’ he’d been observing... he was burrowing within them, even if only to discover a resistance to admitting depths.” Pierpont declares Sabbath’s Theater “a masterpiece of twentieth-century American literature: coursing with life, dense with character and wisdom, it gives the deepest experiences we face—dying, remembering, holding on to each other—the startling impact of first knowledge.” Exit Ghost is about the “mystification between young and old,” while Nemesis is about “conscience and duty as much as it is about the randomness of fate.” Her luminous and graceful study achieves what all good criticism should: it drives us to reread Roth’s work anew. Agent: Robert Cornfield, Robert Cornfield Literary Agency.

December 1, 2013
An insightful portrait of a creative life. New Yorker writer Pierpont (Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World, 2000) admired Philip Roth long before she met him at a party in 2002. That meeting generated nearly a decade of conversations that inform this book: part biography--"used primarily as illumination"--part literary and cultural history, part Roth's own memories, all in the service of examining Roth's long, prolific career. Goodbye, Columbus (1959) catapulted the young author to fame, earning a National Book Award and acclaim from such prominent literary figures as Saul Bellow, Alfred Kazin, Irving Howe and Leslie Fiedler. It also incited accusations of anti-Semitism among readers who objected to Roth's portrayal of his characters. "I'll never write about Jews again," he announced after a particularly grueling attack. But 10 years later--after two critical and commercial failures--Portnoy's Complaint appeared. This novel, about "a wretchedly good Jewish boy's attempts to squirm out of the ethical straitjacket of his childhood...," was, writes Pierpont, "one of the signal subversive acts of a subversive age" and established Roth's literary identity. Pierpont traces Roth's life through two marriages, many affairs, a few awkward dates with Jacqueline Kennedy, assorted medical maladies and near-suicidal depression. She offers judicious overviews of his works and critics' responses, including feminists' accusations of misogyny. Although she draws somewhat on Roth's two partial autobiographies, she calls her subject a master of self-disguise, most overtly revealed in Zuckerman, the protagonist of four novels, including Zuckerman Unbound. "Without Zuckerman--or some other mask," writes Pierpont, "Roth is kind, discreet, and far from exciting. Also, far from truthful." Although the opinionated Roth never avoided a fight, the man Pierpont came to know was reserved, gentle and cautious. "This is a discrepancy that all of Roth's friends observe," she notes: "the literary pirate who carries a bottle of Purell." Although not a substitute for a full biography, Pierpont's book offers a candid and sympathetic portrait of an audacious writer.

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June 1, 2013

Written by a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker who focuses on the arts, this work is neither a biography of Philip Roth nor a straightforward evaluation of his work. Instead, Pierpont looks at the whole--the man, the writing, and the mythologies that have grown up around both--to show us the meaning of a great writer.

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