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Commentary

I am that kind of person

Philip Roth and indignation
by James Ley
March 2009, no. 309

In TheGhost Writer (1979), the first of the nine Philip Roth novels in which Nathan Zuckerman plays a major role, the young Zuckerman uses a family squabble over an inheritance as the basis for a short story. His father is appalled. Why would Nathan depict his own family in such an unflattering light, perpetuate negative Jewish stereotypes, and give ammunition to anti-Semites? ‘You are not somebody who writes this kind of story and then pretends it’s the truth,’ his father despairs. ‘But I did write it,’ Nathan replies. ‘I am the kind of person who writes this kind of story.’

 


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