Roth, Philip, 1933–, American author, b. Newark, N.J., grad. Univ. of Chicago (M.A., 1955). His writings, noted for their irony and themes of identity, rebellion, and sexuality, deal largely with middle-class Jewish-American life. Roth gained his initial literary reputation with the short-story collection Good-bye Columbus (1959). Portnoy's Complaint (1969), a psychiatrist-couch monologue by a young, insecure, and hilariously articulate Jewish man who describes his life, notably his possessive mother, his erotic fascination with blonde Gentile girls, and his masturbatory exploits, is Roth's most famous novel. It has been widely acclaimed a comic masterpiece. His many other works include the novels The Breast (1972), The Great American Novel (1973), My Life as a Man (1974), The Ghost Writer (1979) Zuckerman Unbound (1981), Zuckerman Bound (1985), The Counterlife (1987), The Facts (1988), Operation Shylock (1993), the trilogy American Pastoral (1997; Pulitzer Prize), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000), and The Plot against America (2004). His flood of later novels, which frequently portray American life in the last decades of the 20th cent. with a mixture of comedy and savagery, have often been imaginative amalgams of autobiography and fiction, sometimes with doppelgänger Nathan Zuckerman standing in for the author or with "Philip Roth" appearing as character or narrator. Roth also has written a nonfiction account of his father's death, Patrimony: A True Story (1991). Several of his most recent fictional works, notably The Human Stain, The Dying Animal (2001), and Everyman (2006), treat end-of-life themes—remembrance and regret, the last sparks of sexual desire, the ills and sorrows of the failing body, and mortality itself.

Bibliography

See his The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography (1988, repr. 1997) and his essays, Reading Myself and Others (1985); G. J. Searles, ed., Conversations with Philip Roth (1992); studies by S. Pinsker (1975), A. Z. Milbauer and D. G. Watson, ed. (1988), J. L. Halio (1992), A. Cooper (1996), S. Milowitz (2000), M. Shechner (2003), D. Shostak (2004), G. Welsch (2005), J. L. Halio and B. Siegel, ed. (2005), and D. P. Royal, ed. (2005).

Roth, Philip (Milton)

(born March 19, 1933, Newark, N.J., U.S.) U.S. writer. Roth attended the University of Chicago and first achieved fame with Goodbye Columbus (1959), whose title story concerns the boorish materialism of a suburban family. His works are characterized by an acute ear for dialogue, a concern with Jewish middle-class life, and the painful entanglements of sexual and familial love. Among his many subsequent novels are the comic and scandalous Portnoy's Complaint (1969) and an admired series centring on a writer named Nathan Zuckerman, including The Ghost Writer (1979) and Zuckerman Unbound (1981). Other works include Sabbath's Theater (1995, National Book Award), American Pastoral (1997, Pulitzer Prize), and The Human Stain (2000).

Roth, Philip (Milton) (1933– ) writer; born in Newark, N.J. He studied at Rutgers (1950–51), Bucknell (B.A. 1954), and the University of Chicago (M.A. 1955; further study, 1956–58). He gained overnight acclaim for Goodbye, Columbus (1959, National Book Award), a novella, and five short stories, but for many years he combined his writing career with teaching at such institutions as the University of Iowa (1960–62), the University of New York: Stony Brook (1967–68), Princeton (1962–64), and the University of Pennsylvania (1965–80). Many of his writings brought him criticism from his fellow Jewish-Americans for his satiric views of their lives, while his Portnoy's Complaint (1969) gained him notoriety in broader circles for its frank sexuality. In The Great American Novel (1973) he tried his hand at mythologizing baseball. His trilogy, beginning with The Ghost Writer (1979), features his alter-ego, Nathan Zuckerman, and in these and subsequent books he plays with the notions of what is fiction and what is real about his own public self. He was also drawn to issues of censorship and intellectual freedom and for many years edited a series of translations of authors from Eastern European countries. Whatever his final standing in American literature, he clearly entertained and enraged readers in equal measure.