755 “a deep and irrepressible rage”: LDH, 145.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  759 “mild congestive heart failure”: PR to Hermione Lee, 4 Sept. 2011, PRPP.

  759“Are you the coauthor”: BB int. Dorothy Brand Slapcoff, 20 June 2013.

  760 “He is not St. Philip, Jane!”: BB int. Jane Brown Maas, 11 Oct. 2012.

  761 “She was a little old white-haired lady”: RU, 324.

  761 “I always had a higher opinion”: BB int. Lucy Warner Kuemmerle, 10 Oct. 2012.

  763 “She had lost none of her beauty”: Email from PR to BB, 4 Feb. 2016.

  763 “You’re still my girl”: PR to Barbara Solomon, 25 Apr. 2011, PR–LC.

  764 “I would have married her”: Jane Maas, “St. Philip: Sixty-two Years with Philip Roth,” Bucknell Magazine, Fall 2013.

  764 “love of his life”: BB int. Susan Rogers, 24 Oct. 2014.

  765 “mainly from a provocation”: WW, xi.

  766 “I understand your point”: Ibid., 349.

  766 “hilarious screed”: Remnick, “Philip Roth Says Enough,” newyorker.com, 9 Nov. 2012.

  766 “He was my cynical big brother”: Quoted in Alan Cooper, Philip Roth and the Jews (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 4.

  767 “I should never have written”: PR to Hermione Lee, 14 Sept. 2012, PR–LC.

  767 “was more substantial”: Prachi Gupta, “Does Philip Roth Know What Inspired His Novel?,” Salon, 19 Sept. 2012.

  768 “just another piece of support”: David Hadar, “Is Roth Really Done?,” Tablet, 13 Nov. 2012.

  768 “Now I just listen”: PR’s interview with Weekend Edition is from 23 Mar. 2013; https://www.npr.org/2013/03/23/174949848/at-80-philip-roth-reflects-on-life-literature-and-the-beauty-of-naps.

  769 “I don’t want to read”: Nelly Kaprielian, “In Which Philip Roth Announces His Retirement (in English),” Paris Review blog, Nov. 13, 2012; https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/11/13/in-which-philip-roth-announces-his-retirement-in-english/.

  769 “one last Möbius strip”: Adam Gopnik, “Happy Birthday,” New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2013.

  769 “cheerful, relaxed and at peace”: Charles McGrath, “Goodbye, Frustration: Pen Put Aside, Roth Talks,” New York Times, 17 Nov. 2012, 1.

  769 “I don’t like the way”: “Literary Caucus: Salman Rushdie, James Franco, and 28 More Notables Assess Philip Roth’s Career,” New York, 4 Mar. 2013.

  769 “I’m happy he’s still alive”: Emily Temple, “36 Famous Writers on Philip Roth’s Retirement,” Flavorwire, 30 Nov. 2012.

  769 “listening to his own funeral proceedings”: PR to Edward Hoagland, 21 Jan. 2013.

  769 “Has there ever been a cannier promoter”: “Writers Pick Their Favorite Philip Roth Novel,” Daily Beast, 18 Dec. 2012.

  770 “Ah, Daphne sees right through”: PR to BB, 19 Dec. 2012.

  770 “When are you asking me?”: David Odegard, “The Roth I Know: A Q&A with the Director of ‘Philip Roth: Unmasked,’ ” Word and Film, 26 Mar. 2013.

  770 where he “stole the show”: David L. Ulin, “Philip Roth in Pasadena (Sort of) Talks Career and Retirement,” latimes.com, Jan. 15, 2013.

  770 “marvelous company”: A. O. Scott, “Looking Past the Alter Egos to the Novelist,” New York Times, 12 Mar. 2013.

  771 “because I’m a goy”: Robert Wiener, “Book World Comes to Newark to Honor Roth on His 80th,” New Jersey Jewish News, 26 Mar. 2013.

  771 “We should have met”: Livia Manera Sambuy, “You’ll Never Write about Me Again,” Believer, Jan.–Feb. 2015.

  771 “How would you feel”: Amy Ellis Nutt, “Jersey’s Literary Lion Philip Roth Still Roars at 80,” Star-Ledger, 20 Mar. 2013.

  772 “I had heard he was very private”: Ibid.

  772 “That this scholarly organization”: Steven G. Kellman, “Four Score and Philip Roth: A Dispatch from the Author’s 80th Birthday,” Tablet, 22 Mar. 2013.

  772 “accepted the honor of batting lead-off”: PR@80, 12.

  772 “There are no generalizations to be made”: Ibid., 31.

  773 “this is the tip of the iceberg”: Ibid., 49.

  773 “Tempting as it is”: Ibid., 51.

  774 “On top of all your millions of dollars”: PO, 576.

  774 “He had a reputation as a literary troublemaker”: Mike Vilensky, “High Honors for Author Philip Roth: Writer Receives France’s Insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor,” Wall Street Journal, 1 Oct. 2013.

  774 “Je suis absolutement ravi”: Colin DeVries, “Philip Roth Gets France’s Highest Honor; French Will Open Public Bookstore in Embassy Building,” New York Daily News, Page Views, 2 Oct. 2013.

  775 “IS PHILIP ROTH AN ANTI-SEMITE?”: Email from PR to Steve Zipperstein, 18 May 2014.

  775 “Roth has won”: Jay Michaelson, “When He Was Good,” Forward, 7 Dec. 2012.

  776 “the greatest sociologist”: “Sacred and Profane: Philip Roth, Onetime ‘Enfant Terrible,’ Gets Seminary Honor,” Jewish Exponent, 27 May 2014.

  776 “There he would sit”: Emma Brockes, “The Real Scandal of Patrick Modiano’s Nobel Win Is That Philip Roth Is a Huge Loser—Again,” Guardian, 9 Oct. 2014.

  777 “retirement present”: James Walton, “Give Philip Roth the Nobel Prize as a Retirement Present,” Telegraph, 13 Nov. 2012.

  777 the whole thing “meaningless”: Hephzibah Anderson, “Bookies Tout Murakami as Nobels Flirt with Literary Irrelevance,” Bloomberg News, 9 Oct. 2012.

  777 “I wonder if I had called”: PR’s Svenska Dagbladet interview later appeared as “My Life as a Writer,” New York Times Book Review, 16 Mar. 2014.

  778 “Step forward Jonathan Franzen!”: Brockes, “The Real Scandal.”

  778 “an impressive choice”: “Philip Roth Emails Bob Dylan about His Nobel Win in a New Amy Rigby Song,” Slate, 1 Dec. 2016.

  778 “It’s okay, but next year I hope Peter, Paul and Mary get it”: David Remnick, “Postscript: Philip Roth,” New Yorker, 4–11 June 2018.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  779 “Going out with Philip Roth”: Hermione Lee, “An Audience with Philip Roth,” Observer, 6 Oct. 2007.

  779 “I know you!”: BB int. Claudia Roth Pierpont, 13 Mar. 2015.

  780 “to fade forever from the public scene”: PR to Edna O’Brien, 3 May 2013, PRPP.

  780 “The American novelist’s indifference to”: “My Life as a Writer,” New York Times Book Review, 16 Mar. 2014.

  780 “Positively Last Appearance”: PR to Steve Isenberg, 15 June 2013, PRPP.

  780 “felt more like a rock concert”: Anne Margaret Daniel, “Philip Roth Reads One Last Time,” Huffington Post, 14 May 2014.

  781 “You can write this down”: Jennifer Schuessler, “Philip Roth Says He Has Given His Last Public Reading,” New York Times, 9 May 2014.

  782 “Roth takes pride”: Nadel’s essay was faxed to Roth as an unpublished typescript; it later appeared in Roth and Celebrity (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2012).

  783 he “faithfully reproduced ‘all the noises’ ”: Nicholas Rapold, “Eternal Regard for a Self-Obsessed Id,” New York Times, 12 Oct. 2014.

  783 “I remember saying”: Pacino’s interview, dated 10 Dec. 2014, is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8x-7Lihpf4.

  784 “A writer who stops writing”: “Philip Roth Tells French Publication He’s Done Writing Books,” Associated Press, 9 Nov. 2012.

  784 “full of quiet pleasure”: PR to Catherine Camus, 23 Jan. 2014, PRPP.

  784 “light-filled apartment”: PR to Edna O’Brien, 8 Apr. 2014, PRPP.

  785 “he could barely drag his walker”: Luye Lui’s undelivered eulogy for PR.

  785 “Three things I don’t do anymore”: BB int. Freya Manfred, 3 Aug. 2013.

  786 “wild turkey perched on the stone wall”: PR to Susan Jacoby, 15 June 2013.

  787 “caused a mini-uproar”: Christopher Rosen, “Mia Farrow’s ‘Sharknado’ Tweet with Photo of Philip Roth Was a Joke,” Huffington Post, 12 July 2013.

  787 “absolutely unprecedented”: BB int. Bernard Rodgers, 17 Nov. 2015.

  791 “He was an inspiring figure”: Bruce Weber, “Richard G. Stern, Writers’ Writer, Dies at 84,” New York Times, 24 Jan. 2013.

  793 “I know perfectly well who you are”: Email from PR to BB, 28 Jan. 2016.

  793 “that generations of foreign readers”: James McAuley, “Philip Roth Is France’s Newest Literary Superstar. Why?,” Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2017.

  794 “nightmare now in America”: PR to Josyane Savigneau, 2 Sept. 2017, PRPP.

  795 “You will go on to have a baby”: Email from LH to BB, 19 Apr. 2017.

  797 “I have been to see the great enemy”: Ben Taylor’s remarks at PR’s memorial, 25 Sept. 2018.

  797 “Do you mean to tell me, Julia”: Email from Julia Golier to BB, 27 Oct. 2019.

  EPILOGUE

  799 “How should those obtuse”: Cynthia Ozick, “In Praise of Zest and Laughter,” Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2018.

  799 “I buried an ex-wife”: Email from Russ Murdock to BB, 16 Aug. 2018.

  800 “not enough legroom”: RU, 190.

  800 “quiet neighbors” and “nice setback”: JT’s eulogy at PR’s memorial, 25 Sept. 2018.

  801 “I think Roth died from grief”: Paige Williams, “Reading Philip Roth after the Pittsburgh Massacre,” New Yorker, 12 Nov. 2018.

  801 “It is strange (to put it politely)”: RMO, 177.

  802 “We think the Newark Public Library”: Charles McGrath, “A Scene Right Out of Philip Roth: His Books Come Home to Newark’s Library,” New York Times, 25 Oct. 2016.

  802 “It is a splendid”: “America Across the River,” The Economist, 5 Nov. 2016.

  805 “I got many wonderful things”: Jane Graham, “The Loves and Lives of Claire Bloom,” www.bigissue.com, 29 Jan. 2013.

  805 “so afraid of dying”: Email from CB to Martin Garbus, 24 May 2018.

  805 “You wrote with anger, Claire”: CB’s appearance on BBC Newsnight, 23 May 2018; https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0682t0y.

  806 “encompasses and transcends modes”: PR@80, 12.

  806 “He sat on a train”: David Plante, Worlds Apart (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 108.

  807 “There was nothing that could ever equal”: AL, 421.

  807 “It’s love, love, love, love, love, love”: Christopher Sykes int. PR, c. Jan. 2011, Web of Stories; https://www.webofstories.com/play/philip.roth/163;jsessionid=D0BACA0FCA9249DA3AFFE99EA679C00C.

  INDEX

  Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

  Page numbers in italics refer to photographs.

  Abbott, Jack Henry, 369n, 782

  Abelman, Arthur F., 310

  Achebe, Chinua, 753

  “Actor’s Life for Me, An” (Roth), 257–58

  “Adam and Eve on Delancey Street” (Rosenfeld), 133, 312

  Adelman, Enrico, 779, 800

  Adventures of Augie March, The (Bellow), 107, 108–9, 128, 137, 207, 276, 635, 638, 639

  Advise and Consent (Drury), 188

  Aiken, Clay, 690

  Aiken, Conrad, 238

  Aiken, Joan, 493

  Aksyanov, Vasily, 461

  Albee, Edward, 259, 268, 384

  Aldrich, Nelson, 146

  Aleichem, Sholem, 9

  Alexander II (tsar of Russia), 10–11

  Alfred Kazin’s America (Solotaroff, ed.), 621, 736

  Algren, Nelson, 93, 217, 304

  Allen, Woody, 471, 573, 574n, 788

  Alvarez, Al, 194, 342, 433, 441, 454, 501, 725, 744, 747

  Alvarez, Anne, 433

  America First Committee, 674, 691

  American Apocalypse (Miller), 605–6

  American Jewish experience

  Arab-Israeli conflict and, 370

  Bellow on, 107, 108–9

  Claire Bloom and, 408

  Bucknell chapel and, 73

  Commentary and, 133, 181, 369–77

  education and, 70

  family care and, 287

  Holocaust and, 168, 174, 183, 314, 375–76

  Howe on, 70, 171–72, 370

  insularity, 69–70, 74, 312–13

  Israel symposium on, 242–44

  Mailer-Lelchuk conflict and, 369

  Malamud and, 205–6

  marriage and, 132

  menschlichkeit and, 164

  New York and, 511

  PR’s childhood and, 20, 28–29, 30, 32–34, 37–38, 42–43, 52

  PR’s family background and, 11–13

  PR’s friendship with Avishai and, 491

  PR’s funeral and, 800

  PR’s military service and, 104–5, 106

  race riots and, 590

  solidarity, 151, 236–37

  Tanenhaus on, 370, 371

  University of Chicago, 93, 94

  see also anti-Semitism

  American Masters, 770

  American Mischief (Lelchuk), 322, 366–69, 678

  American Pastoral (Roth)

  acclaim for, 2–3

  ambivalence about America in, 613–14

  audiobook of, 590

  Baraka and, 682

  Chelsea Clinton and, 645

  cover art, 609–10

  critical reception of, 2, 610–11, 613–15, 729, 737

  film version, 784

  frame narrative of, 611–12, 749

  French popularity of, 660

  The Great American Novel and, 378–79

  Seymour “Swede” Masin in, 588, 615–16, 768

  Patsy’s restaurant in, 708n

  PR’s funeral and, 800

  publicity for, 610

  Pulitzer Prize, 2, 568, 616–17

  research for, 588–91

  Herman Roth’s career and, 57, 605

  on Thanksgiving, 356n

  writing process, 586–89, 593

  American Place Theatre, 258, 266, 269, 306

  American Trilogy (Roth)

  chance in, 392, 612–13

  conception of, 651

  critical reception of, 6, 666, 729

  PR’s evolution and, 3

  see also American Pastoral; Human Stain, The; I Married a Communist

  Ames, Elizabeth, 263–64, 352

  Amis, Kingsley, 236n

  Amis, Martin, 450, 468, 582

  Among the Dangs (Elliott), 200

  Anatomy Lesson, The (Roth)

  American Jewish experience in, 370, 374

  Asher on, 451

  autobiographical content and, 403, 468–69

  completion of, 463, 464–65, 467

  critical reception of, 376, 467–68, 548

  friends’ critiques of, 464

  Howe and, 70, 373–74, 376–77

  Lelchuk and, 374, 679

  Ross Miller on, 481

  The Prague Orgy and, 470

  PR’s evolution and, 3

  PR’s pain and, 403

  research for, 588

  sales of, 515

  Schloss as copyeditor for, 453

  writing process, 463

  Anderson, Marian, 47–48

  Anderson, Sherwood, 21, 66, 235n, 370, 372, 733

  Andresino, Matthew, 104–5, 110

  Angoff, Charles, 193

  “Angry Act, The” (Kleinschmidt), 228, 241, 290–92

  Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 235n

  Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 168, 469, 682, 775

  anti-Semitism

  in England, 436, 474–75, 485, 492, 494, 495

  Operation Shylock on, 546

  Pittsburgh synagogue massacre (2018), 801

  The Plot Against America on, 38, 674–75, 691–93, 801

  during PR’s childhood, 20, 38, 46

  PR’s college years and, 77–78, 79, 87

  PR’s relationship with Claire Bloom and, 436–37, 474, 525, 644, 757

  Herman Roth’s career and, 46

  Vidal and, 640n

  see also Roth, Philip Milton, anti-Semitism accusations

  “Apology for Raymond Sebond, An” (Montaigne), 100

  Appelfeld, Aharon, 473, 495, 496, 503, 540, 672

  Appiah, K. Anthony, 682

  Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, The (Richler), 177

  Apu Trilogy (Ray), 570

  Arab-Israeli conflict, 370, 373–74, 473, 503–5, 545-47

  Aranowicz, Yehiel, 221

  Arendt, Hannah, 182, 183, 524, 799

  Aronson, Don, 59

  Aronson, Jay, 126

  Arrick, Larry, 344

  Asher, Aaron

  on American Pastoral, 610–11, 735

  The Anatomy Lesson and, 451

  background of, 189–90

  The Breast and, 362

  death of, 736

  departure from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 450–52

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux position, 396

  The Ghost Writer and, 451

  on The Human Stain, 735

  Limelight and After and, 412

  Ross Miller’s biography and, 706

  The Professor of Desire and, 427, 548

  PR’s 40th birthday party and, 377

  PR’s friendship with, 190, 451, 568, 735–36

  PR’s health issues and, 489

  PR’s move to Holt, Rinehart and Winston and, 354

  PR’s psychiatric hospitalization and, 557

  PR’s relationship with Claire Bloom and, 535, 568

  Fredrica Wagman and, 343

  Zuckerman Unbound and, 450

  Asher, Abigail, 660

  Asher, Linda, 190, 377, 489

  Assistant, The (Malamud), 107–8, 202, 205, 235n, 476–77

  Asymmetry (Halliday), 795

  Atlas, James

  biography of Bellow, 632–37, 676–77

  PR’s friendship with, 633, 767

  visits PR’s CUNY class, 512

  At Random (Cerf), 353

  “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners, Blow” (Donne), 100

  Auden, W. H., 149–50

  Aurthur, Robert Alan, 181, 183

  Avishai, Bernard

  The Facts and, 508

  Nobel Prize and, 777

  on Patrimony, 540

  on Portnoy’s Complaint, 315n

  PR’s first contact with, 490–91

  on PR’s friendships, 629

  PR’s Halcion-caused depression and, 490, 491

  PR’s Israel visits and, 503–4