Cambridge Companion To Philip Roth, The

Description:
From the moment that his debut book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), won him the National Book Award, Philip Roth has been among the most influential and controversial writers of our age. Now the author of more than twenty novels, numerous stories, two memoirs, and two books of literary criticism, Roth has used his writing to continually reinvent himself and in doing so to remake the American literary landscape. This Companion provides the most comprehensive introduction to his works and thought in a collection of newly commissioned essays from distinguished scholars. Beginning with the urgency of Roth's early fiction and extending to the vitality of his most recent novels, these essays trace Roth's artistic engagement with questions about ethnic identity, postmodernism, Israel, the Holocaust, sexuality, and the human psyche itself. With its chronology and guide to further reading, this Companion will be essential for new and returning Roth readers, students and scholars.

Review:
'The essays in The Cambridge Companion to Philip Roth...reflect the disparate approaches critics bring to Roth's work, affirming its contradictory and complex nature. What these essays also make apparent is how keenly author and reader interact and how robustly Roth's critics continue to debate the meaning of his work.' -Elaine M. Kauvar, Contemporary Literature 'Despite the plethora of recent work on Roth, this new volume has much to recommend it, since each well-written essay explores, as Parrish writes in his introduction, 'Roth's multifacetedness, the constant reinvention, that is at the heart of his extraordinary career'...Recommended.' -Choice

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Roth at mid-career Timothy Parrish; 1. American-Jewish identity in Roth's short fiction Victoria Aarons; 2. Roth, literary influence, and postmodernism Derek Parker Royal; 3. Zuckerman Bound: the celebrant of silence Donald M. Kartiganer; 4. Roth and the Holocaust Michael Rothberg; 5. Roth and Israel Emily Miller Budick; 6. Roth's doubles Josh Cohen; 7. Revisiting Roth's psychoanalysts Jeffrey Berman; 8. Roth and gender Debra Shostak; 9. Roth and ethnic identity Timothy Parrish; 10. Mourning and melancholia in Roth's American Trilogy Mark Shechner; 11. Roth's autobiographical writings Hana Wirth-Nesher; Selected bibliography and suggestions for further reading.

Author Biography:
Timothy Parrish is Associate Professor of English at Texas Christian University.