Philip Roth describes the nightmare scenario. His father is 86 and healthy as a horse. And then, out of the blue, a brain tumor. Well, turns out it was growing for ten years, but who knew? They could operate, but it’d be a year of pure hell to recuperate. And that’s if he even survives the surgery. The question no one wants to ask: Is 86 long enough?
A very upsetting book to read, surely. The elder Roth’s mind can recall the smallest detail of who owned what hardware store in Newark in 1930, but his body is shitting all over himself.
Roth is a smart enough writer to know that a book like this can’t be all horror. There is humor (some of the best retirement community observations this side of Jasper Beardly) and tangential storytelling. . .just to keep your mind focused elsewhere for a minute while the gears of the inevitable work offstage. One is left, in a weird way, feeling just a tiny bit upbeat. The main characters (Roth, his father and brother, essentially) are simply lucky they have one another, and help one another to cope as best they can. They recognize that, even though they may feel like this is a completely unique thing that is happening to the three of them, death may be the only universal constant out there.
This book had a tremendous effect on my subconscious. While reading I got some bad headaches, which I was convinced, naturally, was the work of a tumour. I also had a strange and horrible dream I don’t have the energy to get into, suffice it to say you don’t need an advanced degree from the University of Vienna to figure out (involving a parent telling me “I’m going to a far away country and not coming back.”)
The realism, the voices, the honesty in Philip Roth’s books are what I find so rewarding. This is one of the better ones.
