Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey: Conversation Starters

By dailyBooks

Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey: Conversation Starters

Blake Bailey, in Philip Roth: The Biography, tells the life story of Philip Roth, one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in American history. Given full authority and unrestricted access to the late writer’s archives and memories, Bailey delivers his fourth biography both as a gift to Roth’s readers and as the novelist’s vindication for all the things he was greatly misunderstood for. The book’s main theme, which Roth had wished for, revolves around a simple instruction, “I don’t want you to rehabilitate me. Just make me interesting.”

A New York Times bestseller, Philip Roth sits atop the Jewish Literary Criticism chart on Amazon, with its higher-than-average 4.5 out of 5 score, based on 427 global ratings.

A Brief Look Inside: 
 
EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER
than the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive, 
and the characters and its world still live on. 
Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to
bring us beneath the surface of the page
and invite us into the world that lives on. 
 
These questions can be used to create hours of conversation:
 
• Foster a deeper understanding of the book
• Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups
• Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately
• Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before
 
Disclaimer: This book you are about to enjoy is an independent resource to supplement the original book, enhancing your experience. If you have not yet purchased a copy of the original book, please do before purchasing this unofficial Conversation Starters.
 
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Daily Books
• Release date: Jul 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220822077

Book preview

Introducing Philip Roth

Bailey opens Philip Roth: The Biography with Roth attending an event that honored him in Newark, New Jersey, his hometown, just a few days after the Nobel committee in Sweden had snubbed him yet again. Roth had won every important award and prize in the literary world, except for the Big One, which had eluded him in all the 51 years of his career. The snub made Roth withdraw the respect he had for the prestigious accolade, saying in his previous interviews about how childish it was, and declaring Newark is my Stockholm, during the commemoration event.

The first of six parts focused on Philip Milton Roth’s formative years from 1933 to 1956, accounting for how he spent his childhood in Newark as the adored second-born of Bess and Herman. As a descendant of East-European Jews, they were a second-generation family of immigrants who took their chances in the New World. Bailey borrowed the words of Roth’s father in describing the young writer, an all All-American boy who loved baseball. In school, he was the class clown, owing his humor to Jewish radio comedians in the likes of Eddie Cantor and Jack Benny.

Roth had originally wanted to become a lawyer to defend the underdogs, but during his last year at Weequahic High School, he had contemplated between journalism and law—partly because of his father’s obsessive surveillance, as Bailey would put it, and partly because he excelled in writing. By this time, Roth had already proven to be an effective writer many times over, and proof of which was Let Freedom Ring!, a play co-authored by the twelve-year-old Roth with Dorothy Brand, the smartest girl in the class. At Roth’s seventy-fifth