Blake Bailey Philip Roth Hardback Book

Superlative... definitive and genuinely gripping SUNDAY TIMESUtterly engrossing EVENING STANDARDCompulsively readable... Beautifully written... Definitive OBSERVER Appointed by Philip Roth and granted complete access and independence, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roths 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 postwar literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lowermiddleclass 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 Roths rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almosttwentyyear relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Dolls House. Tracing Roths path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roths engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture. A BOOKS OF 2021 PICK IN THE OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, EVENING STANDARD, SPECTATOR AND NEW STATESMAN | Blake Bailey Philip Roth Hardback Book