In History's Grip Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy [Hardcover]

In History's Gripconcentrates on the literature of Philip Roth, one of America's greatest writers, and in particular onAmerican Pastoral,I Married a Communist, andThe Human Stain. Each of these novels from the 1990s uses Newark, New Jersey, to explore American history and character. Each features a protagonist who grows up in and then leaves Newark, after which he is undone by a historically generated crisis. The city's twentieth-century decline from immigrant metropolis to postindustrial disaster completes the motif of history and its terrifying power over individual destiny.

In History's Gripis the first critical study to foreground the city of Newark as the source of Roth's inspiration, and to scrutinize a subject Roth was accused of avoiding as a younger writerhistory. In so doing, the book brings together the two halves of Roth's decades-long career: the first featuring characters who live outside of history's grip; the second, characters entrapped in historical patterns beyond their ken and control.

Michael Kimmage is Associate Professor of History at the Catholic University of America. His is the author ofThe Conservative Turn(2009). Michael Kimmage, part of a rising new generation of American scholars, does true justice to the work of Philip Roth, an American master beyond compare. Kimmage's book is well-researched and erudite, but it is also warm and thoughtful and full of the very humanity that permeates Roth's work. It is a treat for both those in the academy and those who simply love good literature. In History's Gripis a study of three novels by Philip RothAmerican Pastoral,I Married a Communist, andThe Human Stainshowing that they are built upon the notion of history as disruptive for individuals, cities, and nations and exploring their place in Roth's career. Kimmage's training as a historian and his deep knowledge of Roth's work show in both his expert historical intl/