Philip Roth

Philip Roth
Biographical details
Birth date	March 19th 1933
Birth place	Newark, New Jersey
Death date	Mary 22nd 2018
Death place	New York City
Authorial details
First work	Philosophy, or Something Like That
Last work	Why Write?: Collected Nonfiction 1960–2013
Notable works	The Plot Against America Goodbye, Columbus Portnoy's Complaint The Zuckerman novels Sabbath's Theater

Philip Roth (1933-2018) was an author. Roth is best known for his books Goodbye, Columbus, Portnoy's Complaint, and The Plot Against America.

Life

Born to a second-generation Jewish-American family in Newark, New Jersey in March of 1933, Roth grew up in the middle-class Jewish Weequahic neighborhood. Roth was educated in the public Weequahic High School and graduated in 1950 - which, according to journalist Arnold H. Lubasch, was a major inspiration on the novel Portnoy's Complaint.

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Writing style

According to Roth in his essay "Juice or Gravy?" (included in some editions of Portnoy's Complaint), the first sentences of most of his books (up to Operation Shylock) came directly from a cryptic paper he found in a Chicago diner.

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Connections to other authors

Roth's works were influenced by Franz Kafka, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf. In an article for Open Culture, Roth listed fifteen books that influenced the most. These are:

• Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast
• Finnley Wren by Philip Wylie
• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Trial by Franz Kafka
• The Fall by Albert Camus
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Chéri by Colette
• The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

Notable works

• The Facts - an autobiography
• Patrimony - a memoir about Roth's father

Fiction

• Goodbye, Columbus - a collection of short stories
  • Goodbye, Columbus
  • The Conversion of the Jews
  • Defender of the Faith
  • Epstein
  • You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Sings
  • Eli, the Fanatic
• My Life as a Man
  • Salad Days
  • Courting Disaster (or Serious in the Fifties)
  • My True Story

David Kepesh

• The Breast - a novella about Kepesh becoming a massive breast
• The Professor of Desire - a novel on Kepesh's youth
• The Dying Animal - a novel about Kepesh's annihilation

Zuckerman

• The Ghost Writer - a novel about Zuckerman spending time with one of his literary idols
• Zuckerman Unbound - a novel about the quiz show scandals
• The Anatomy Lesson - a novel on Zuckerman's middle age
• The Prague Orgy - shows Zuckerman visiting Prague
• The Counterlife - a selection of various narratives
• American Pastoral - a novel about an upper class family being thrown into turmoil
• I Married a Communist - a novel about a communist being betrayed by his wife
• The Human Stain - a novel about a retired professor
• Exit Ghost - a novel about Zuckerman returning home

Philip Roth/Roth family

• Deception - shows Roth engaging in an affair
• Operation Shylock - shows Roth travelling to Israel
• The Plot Against America - shows America becoming a fascist state in the 1930s

Novels and novellas

• Letting Go - Roth's debut novel, about a Korean war veteran
• When She Was Good - Roth's only novel with a female protagonist
• Portnoy's Complaint - a novel about a Jewish man in therapy
• Our Gang - a satire of Richard Nixon
• The Great American Novel - a satire of baseball
• Sabbath's Theater - a novel about the exploits of a painter
• Everyman - a novel about a man obsessed with mortality
• Indignation - a novel about a student's life during the Korean War
• The Humbling - a novel about an old actor
• Nemesis - a novel about a polio epidemic

Gallery

The first edition of Goodbye, Columbus (1959)

The first edition of Letting Go (1962)

The first edition of When She Was Good (1967)

The first edition of Portnoy's Complaint (1969)

The first edition of Our Gang (1971)

The first edition of The Breast (1972)

The first edition of The Great American Novel (1973)

The first edition of My Life as a Man (1974)

The first edition of The Professor of Desire (1977)

The first edition of Zuckerman Unbound (1981)

The first edition of The Anatomy Lesson (1983)

The first edition of The Prague Orgy (1985)

The first edition of Zuckerman Bound (1985)

The first edition of The Counterlife (1986)

The first edition of The Facts (1988)

The first edition of Deception (1990)

The first edition of Patrimony (1991)

The first edition of Operation Shylock (1993)

The first edition of Sabbath's Theater (1995)

The first edition of American Pastoral (1997)

The first edition of I Married a Communist (1998)

The first edition of The Human Stain (2000)

The first edition of The Dying Animal (2001)

The first edition of The Plot Against America (2004)

The first edition of Everyman (2006)

The first edition of Exit Ghost (2007)

The first edition of Indignation (2008)

The first edition of The Humbling (2009)

The first edition of Nemesis (2010)

See also

• Gore Vidal
• Don DeLillo
• John Updike
• Erica Jong
• Herman Wouk
• Saul Bellow
• Henry James
• Thomas Pynchon

Works of Philip Roth

Early novels (1959-1977) Goodbye, Columbus, Letting Go, When She Was Good, Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang, The Breast, The Great American Novel, My Life as a Man, The Professor of Desire Middle novels (1979-1993) The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, The Anatomy Lesson, The Prague Orgy, The Counterlife, Deception, Operation Shylock Later novels (1995-2010) Sabbath's Theater, American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, The Human Stain, The Dying Animal, The Plot Against America, Everyman, Exit Ghost, Indignation, The Humbling, Nemesis Miscellany Goodbye, Columbus, Reading Myself and Others, A Philip Roth Reader, Zuckerman Bound, The Facts, Patrimony, Shop Talk Major and recurring characters Nathan Zuckerman, Philip Roth, Neil Klugman, David Kepesh, Gabe Wallach, Lucy Nelson, Alexander Portnoy, Trick E. Dixon, Word Smith, Peter Tarnopol, Mickey Sabbath, Swede Levov, Nathan Zuckerman, Marcus Messner, Simon Axler, Bucky Cantor, Arnie Mesnikoff