L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
“Philip Roth: The Biography”
Blake Bailey
W.W. Norton & Co.

PHILIP ROTH WAS born
March 19, 1933 in Newark, New
Jersey, and, until his death in
2018, he was still trying to fi gure
out what that meant.

In the ethnic patchwork
of the city, Roth saw middle-
class strivers and upper-class
anxieties, sexual opportunities
and his community’s social
and religious pieties. He saw
the smallness and the bigness
of it all, that it was absolutely
mundane and absolutely a way
to think about the great big
country around him.

Roth couldn’t be said to have
been a pig-headed patriot, nor
a refl exive critic of the country
where he lived. But the man that
emerges from his collected work
— 31 books, some good, some
bad, some sublime — is one that
Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company
seems like he could’ve only come
from here.

Blake Bailey’s new biography
of Roth — “Th e Biography,” as
it’s subtitled — tells the story
of Roth’s life and career in a
way that he deserves. Bailey, who
was given total access to Roth
and his papers, is obviously a
partisan for Roth in some fi ghts,
including one key battle, but
recounts every scandal and
airs every grievance, fi nancial,
literary, fi lial, romantic or other-
wise. Roth may have Bailey in
his corner, but Bailey sends him
back to the ring for every round.

Having previously written
biographies of titanically gift ed
and personally fl awed writers like
John Cheever and Richard Yates,
Bailey must have smiled when
Roth gave him his charge, the
one that’s used as the epigraph
of this book: “I don’t want you
to rehabilitate me. Just make me
interesting.” Th at’s all Bailey’s
ever done for men like Roth.

Granted, it would be diffi -
cult to make one of the most
decorated writers in American
history uninteresting. He was
also one of the most famous
writers in the country at a time
when a novelist could be a bona
fi de celebrity and, on top of
that, he had a tendency toward
bed-hopping, courting the ire of
his co-religionists and dispar-
aging just about anyone and
anything on the record. What
other novelist could claim the
B O O KS
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
ANOTHER MONTH, another
slew of exciting new Jewish
books. We wish we could review
them all, but the space available
is fi nite, and there’s a whole lot
of other stuff going on.

As a consolation prize, we’re
highlighting fi ve new releases
coming out this month that we
think you’ll enjoy. Happy reading!
Courtesy of Paul Dry Books
B OOKS
An April Shower
(of Books)
“Reading Ruth: Birth,
Redemption and the Way
of Israel” (April 6)
Leon Kass and
Hannah Mandelbaum
Courtesy of Knopf
Review: “Philip Roth:
The Biography”
Kass, a conservative bioethi-
cist, has written a few of these
close-reading volumes that
deal with Tanach texts. Th is
newest iteration, written with
his granddaughter Hannah
Mandelbaum, explores the
Book of Ruth. Th e pair found a
rich vein in which to both blast
See Roth, Page 26 and chisel, and their reading is,
if not particularly novel, at least
a clearly rendered introduction
to the text and the traditional
questions that surround it.

Courtesy of Metropolitan Books
HEALTHCARE DIRECTORY
“Antiquities” (April 13)
Cynthia Ozick
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APRIL 15, 2021
JEWISH EXPONENT
Th e physical “Antiquities” —
the book itself — lends itself to
the feeling that you’re reading a
curious little fable as much as
the text does. It’s on the smaller
side, just 179 pages, with almost
nothing in the way of pre- or
postscript, and a spare cover.

“Antiquities” takes the form
of a sort of dramatic monologue
from Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie,
an elderly man who once served
as the trustee of a long-defunct
synagogue, now preparing his
memoirs. “Antiquities” is best
encountered knowing that
and no more; its quiet subtlety
demands it.

“The Passenger” (April 13)
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz;
translated by Philip Boehm
Th e text of “Th e Passenger”
is translated into English for
the fi rst time, and we’re lucky
to have it. Written in haste
in 1938, the book follows
Otto Silbermann, a Jewish
businessman in Germany who
See Books, Page 26
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