Review by Booklist Review
The rapport between Philip Roth and award-winning literary biographer Bailey is immediately apparent in this fully authorized, comprehensive, and engrossing chronicle of a driven, complicated, and contentious artistic life. Roth's voice, by turns funny, furious, anguished, erudite, and reconciled, is heard throughout Bailey's flowing, vivid, and precise account, beginning with Roth's contented Newark childhood as a "flashy, grade-skipping wunderkind." We witness the blossoming of Roth's ardor for women and satire in college, the source of his chronic back pain, and the jump-start to his success in 1960 when Roth became the youngest writer to receive the National Book Award. Bailey tracks the creation of each of Roth's 31 books during two traumatic marriages and a constant stream of affairs, detailing how Roth audaciously and provokingly mined his experiences and relationships to fuel radical fiction that ranged from flagrant to prescient and aroused high praise and vehement criticism. Accused of being an anti-Semitic Jew, a misogynist, a subversive, and a vulgarian, he deployed confounding alter egos and dug deeply into his own and America's psyche. As Bailey details Roth's publishing deals, teaching stints, love of solitude, and devotion to craft as a "fanatic reviser," he places Roth's protean achievements within the history of American literature, and traces the arc of his work from shocking to profound, forging a consummate and unforgettable biography of a controversial, virtuoso, and indelible American writer.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Biographer Bailey (Cheever) brings his talents to bear in this remarkable portrait of lauded and divisive literary titan Philip Roth (1933--2018). Roth was born in Newark, N.J., in "perhaps the most anti-Semitic decade in American history" and was, according to his father, "an all-American boy who loved baseball." The Roth that Bailey brings to life is a complex mix of confidence and self-doubt; Roth became the youngest winner of the National Book Award and, Bailey writes, questioned "the whole concept of what a novel was, or what he himself was supposed to be as a writer." Bailey tirelessly unpacks the real-life inspirations behind Roth's fiction, shedding light on an early girlfriend who inspired Brenda Patimkin in his 1959 debut Goodbye, Columbus and the romantic fling who became a character 30 years later in The Human Stain. Bailey doesn't shy away from Roth's dark side, notably his self-involved nature and tendency to let "old griefs and resentments fester." In consistently luminous, humorous prose, Bailey vividly evokes Roth as a writer and a man--Roth would, for example, spend "the odd weekend" in 1964 with his girlfriend, and "by Sunday afternoons... would be almost beside himself: 'You have to leave now! I have to work!' " A stunning feat, this is as dynamic and gripping as any of Roth's own fictions. Photos. Agent: Shane Salerno. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In the years before his death in 2018, Philip Roth was often acclaimed as America's greatest living writer. In this comprehensive biography, Bailey (Cheever: A Life) takes on the task of untangling the details of the author's life from his often semi-autobiographical fiction. Bailey presents Roth as a talented and dedicated writer who is increasingly sensitive to his reputation. Driven by his ego and his libido, Roth's life was marked by his prolific literary output and his many romantic relationships. Bailey is a sympathetic biographer, often dismissive of charges of misogyny in Roth's writing and clearly favoring Roth's account of his fraught and highly publicized relationship with the actress Claire Bloom. This work is evidence of Bailey's exhaustive research and unique access to his subject; Roth selected Bailey as his biographer, and the two had extensive interviews in preparation for the book. VERDICT For an author like Roth, who put so much of his own life into his books, this biography is an essential companion to his novels, enabling readers to discover the true-life inspirations for many of his memorable characters and scenes. Recommended for readers who have read and enjoyed Philip Roth's fiction.--Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An acclaimed biographer turns his attention to the author he has called America's "greatest living novelist." Philip Roth (1933-2018) was famous enough to socialize with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Claudette Colbert; at one point, he turned down the advances of recently widowed Jackie Kennedy. In this excellent biography, Bailey offers an evenhanded portrait of an author whose many admirers include authors Nicole Krauss, Edna O'Brien, and Zadie Smith but whose depictions of women in novels such as Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater infuriated others. For example, in 2011, his Man Booker International Prize spurred one of the judges--Carmen Callil, founder of the feminist Virago Press, the English publisher of Leaving a Doll's House, the scathing memoir by Roth's ex-wife, Claire Bloom--to resign in protest. Roth gave Bailey access to his archive and sat down for interviews, and it shows, especially in the many intimate details about Roth's personal life: his Jewish upbringing in Newark; his friendships and rivalries with John Updike, William Styron, and other contemporaries; his ailments, from lifelong back trouble to coronary artery disease, for which he preferred a bypass over beta blockers because the medicine made him impotent; and his many affairs, including while married to Bloom. Bailey offers positive and negative assessments of Roth's books, from describing Goodbye, Columbus as "a kind of Jewish Gatsby, given the charm of its prose and humor, its concision, and its theme of meretricious American-style success," to calling out the "breathtaking tastelessness toward women" in The Great American Novel. While Bailey notes that Roth may not have been the misogynist some would believe, he doesn't shy away from pointing out his flaws and blind spots--e.g., when Roth referred to the "ghastly pansy rhetoric" of Edward Albee's play Tiny Alice in a 1965 review or when he organized a party for Bloom's 62nd birthday with his married lover in attendance. An outstanding biography of a prolific author for whom writing was "a ghastly protracted slog." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
