Philip Roth the biography Bailey, Blake 1963- creator author. text bibliography biography Biographies. Biographies. nyu 2021 First edition. monographic eng print xii, 898 pages, 48 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm "The renowned biographer's definitive portrait of a literary titan. Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain. Bailey examines Roth's rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike, and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almost-twenty-year relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Doll's House. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture"-- Prologue -- Land ho! 1933-1956 -- Don't step on the underdog, 1956-1968 -- The moronic inferno, 1968-1975 -- Entering a doll's house, 1975-1995 -- American master, 1995-2006 -- Nemeses, 2006-2018 -- Epilogue. Blake Bailey. Includes bibliographical references (pages 813-861) and index. n-us--- Roth, Philip Roth, Philip Authors, American 20th century Biography Jewish authors United States Biography Authors, American Jewish authors United States BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General 1900-1999 fast PS3568.O855 Z55 2021 813/.54 9780393240726 039324072X 9780393651102 2020048471 pda,print DLC 201106 20250318223904.9 in00004439604 eng