Publisher Description
This recording, made early in Roth's career, is drawn from his first novel, Letting Go. Set in the 1950s, it portrays the social constraints of the period as they affect several graduate students at critical points in their lives. The scene Roth reads shows the rather diffident Paul Herz confronted by two of his ancient rooming-house neighbors who have a favor to ask. As the critic John Ciardi wrote, "Three actors with separately trained voices could not have read it better. If Roth were not so good a writer it would be the world's duty to force him onto the stage."
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“A rich book, full of incident, wry and sad, and even in its most desolating scene somehow amusing.”
—
Harper’s
About Philip Roth
Philip Roth (1933–2018) was one of the most decorated writers in American history, having won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award twice, the PEN/Faulkner Award three times, the National Book Award, and many more. He also won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union and in the same year received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years “for the entire work of the recipient.”