At first, Philip Roth’s umpteenth novel Indignation seems a YouTube reel of familiar Rothian tropes: tradition-addled kids, annoying parents; Newark; prudes, shikses — yet it bears so many ancient grudges, so much destabilizing rage, that its fury makes it thrilling and unique.
Like almost every Roth protagonist, Marcus Messner is the son of a Newark shopkeeper [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Review: Philip Roth’s Indignation
October 31, 2008 – 8:17 pm
Review: Nellie Hermann’s The Cure for Grief
October 26, 2008 – 4:31 pm
Nellie Hermann is a master of memory. In her harrowing debut novel The Cure for Grief, nine-year-old Ruby, the youngest of four and the only girl in the Bronstein family, lives through unfathomable loss. When a number of family members succumb to illness in the opening chapters, the book might initially read as over-dramatic (“Loss! [...]
