Part II in a continuing series on the decline of Jewish vulgarity
Josh Lambert’s ‘The Literary Mafia’ retells the story of Jewish literary achievement in postwar America as the sordid maneuverings of a gang of racist, misogynist white men who, above all, looked out for each other
Philip Roth’s Czech KGB file
Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth biography finds neat patterns where there should be a mess
He was very sexual, deeply selfish, and content to be just that. It made for great writing, but at what cost?
At the height of our national ease, Philip Roth and Allegra Goodman each warned us that the end of history was just an illusion
New biographical works show how Philip Roth’s and Robert Stone’s hedonism fueled their art-making
A fan’s obsessive rummage through the letters and papers of the writer who died two years ago today reveals a playful, funny, brilliant man
How a community was affected by the epidemic—and by the scientists who discovered the vaccine
The late writer, who would have been 87 this week, was a light in the dark for one Cuban American boy
An unrealized surrealist film project known as ‘Giraffes on Horseback Salad’ is rendered in comix, the latest of a century of Talmudic riffs on the disruptive vaudevillian outsiders
Remembering the Hungarian writer and dissident György Konrád, who died last month at age 86
Ben Lerner’s new ‘The Topeka School’ and the problem of masculinity
How Sefton Goldberg saved my life
What the late Yugoslav filmmaker Dušan Makavejev contributed to Greenwich Village’s life-affirming anti-authoritarian counterculture
After a lifetime of idolizing Philip Roth, I discovered a better role model much closer to home
Why the story of Coleman Silk’s epic struggle to escape his roots is still the most-loved Philip Roth book in France
‘Here are the rules of the game, Ms. Katz. Do you have a fax machine? Is it in your office? Will you be sure to be the person receiving my messages?’
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