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Installation Uses Roth Novel, to Roth’s Chagrin

New artwork, ‘Every Inch A Man,’ features ‘The Great American Novel’

by
Marc Tracy
April 05, 2012
The Every Inch A Man installation.(Abrons Art Center/artnet)
The Every Inch A Man installation.(Abrons Art Center/artnet)

An artist has begun an installation/performance piece on the Lower East Side: “Every Inch A Man” involes Bryan Zanisnik sitting in a transparent Plexiglass case in an overstuffed bedroom-looking room, reading Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel while a fan blows money and baseball cards this way and that. (He also takes “intermittent breaks to eat lunch with his parents, Bob and Carol Zanisnik.”)

Not so fast, said Roth’s lawyers.

The novelist’s representatives have sent a cease-and-desist letter (which has, inevitably, been photocopied and turned into props in the piece).

The joke here, in truth, is on Zanisnik: The Great American Novel really isn’t Roth’s best.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.