Philip Roth

The Biography

Philip Roth
Blake Bailey
RRP:
NZ$ 75.00
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NZ$ 60.00
Hardback
h242 x 167mm - 912pg
8 Apr 2021 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780224098175
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The renowned biographer' s definitive portrait of a literary titanThe renowned biographer' s definitive portrait of a literary titan*A ' BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN THE OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, EVENING STANDARD AND NEW STATESMAN*Appointed by Philip Roth and granted complete access and independence, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth' s personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the post-war literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain. Bailey examines Roth' s rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almost-twenty-year relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Doll' s House. Tracing Roth' s path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth' s engagement with nearly every aspect of post-war American culture.
A monumental gift. . . Not only does Blake Bailey bring his famously scrupulous research to bear on this life packed with equal parts honour and scandal, he does so with economy and narrative force - all while working in elegant, unforgettable prose. . . I wept and railed, marvelled and shook my fist at the sky. ' Just make me interesting,' Roth asked of Bailey, and this unputdownable page-turner does just that. -- Mary Karr Everything you ever wanted to know about Philip Roth you can discover in his novels. Everything you ever wanted to know about what it took to become one of the greatest American writers of our time, you will find in Blake Bailey' s breathtaking biography. -- Nicole Krauss Philip Roth, to go with his legendary talent, was a lucky man. That streak continues with Blake Bailey' s charming, wise, and witty biography, which achieves a balance and comprehensiveness that shouldn' t have been possible so soon after Roth' s death. -- Jonathan Lethem Bailey is a very good writer and a very good literary biographer. . . What a story. . . Along with it comes the man in his wholeness. -- James Parker * Atlantic * Bailey brings his talents to bear in this remarkable portrait of lauded and divisive literary titan Philip Roth. . . In consistently luminous, humorous prose, Bailey vividly evokes Roth as a writer and a man. . . A stunning feat, this is as dynamic and gripping as any of Roth' s own fictions. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
Blake Bailey is the author of biographies of John Cheever, Richard Yates, and Charles Jackson. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, and a finalist for the Pulitzer and James Tait Black prizes. His previous book, The Splendid Things We Planned, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. He lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780224098175
Published: 8 Apr 2021
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Yellow Jersey Press
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Format: Hardback
Height: 242mm
Width: 167mm
Spine: 58mm
Weight: 1622g
Pages: 912

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