American Pastoral

Philip Roth is known for his self-referential, semi-autobiographical style. Many of his novels are set in his hometown of Newark during the post-war years; his frequent narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, is often described as his literary alter ego. In his obituary for The New York Times, Charles McGrath writes, “In the course of a very long career, Mr. Roth took on many guises—mainly versions of himself—in the exploration of what it means to be an American, a Jew, a writer, a man” (McGrath, Charles. “Philip Roth, Towering Novelist Who Explored Lust, Jewish Life and America, Dies at 85.” The New York Times, 22 May 2018). As a Jewish writer, those questions inform his exploration of World War II and its aftermath, the lives of Jewish immigrants, and antisemitism in America. The Swede is the descendant of Jewish immigrants who work in the glove manufacturing business. Roth, like the Swede, was a second-generation Jewish American who attended Weequahic High School—the same school in which the Swede’s athletic heroics become legend. In fact, Roth references in his fiction many of the same towns and even local businesses of his youth. As his characters reminisce nostalgically about the Newark of the past, Roth himself develops a more complex picture of a changing city and of the politics of memory.