I’ve read 23 of Philip Roth’s 29 books (31 if you count two books about writing) and this is the first one I can plainly say stinks.
Well – stinks is a rough word. Let’s say it doesn’t do anything to impress. It has a few great moments of elegant writing, but this is marred by what can only be true, ghastly windows into Roth’s extreme egotism and intense misogyny. In the context of a novel, these can be put to good use (usually, for the sake of comedy) but here, in what is meant to be choice pieces of autobiography, they simply make the author look like an ass.
Also – if you haven’t read many of Roth’s other books, you’ll miss the fun of seeing which “actual” events (maybe) were then twisted into scenes from his work. Of course, the key books for this include Letting Go, When She Was Good and My Life As A Man – all of which I’ve read – but hardly are his greatest hits of Portnoy’s Complaint, The Ghost Writer, American Pastoral or The Plot Against America.
An added insult is an extended epilogue written by “Nathan Zuckerman” trashing the book – as if we didn’t feel we’d wasted our time enough.
I don’t regret reading this – I zipped through it in half a plane ride – but I don’t recommend it, especially considering how everything else with Roth’s name on it is well worth picking up.
