For the last half century, the novels of Philip Roth have re-energized
American fiction and redefined its possibilities, leading the critic
Harold Bloom to proclaim Roth ?our foremost novelist since Faulkner.?
Roth's comic genius, his imaginative daring, his courage in exploring
uncomfortable truths, and his assault on political, cultural, and sexual
orthodoxies have made him one of the essential writers of our time. By
special arrangement with the author, The Library of America continues
the definitive edition of Roth's collected works.
This fifth volume of The Library of America's definitive edition of
Philip Roth's collected works presents four books that exemplify the
description of Roth, proposed by British novelist Anthony Burgess, as a
writer ?who never steps twice into the same river.? The Counterlife
(1986) is a novel told from conflicting perspectives about people
enacting drastic dreams of renewal and escape. The Facts (1988)?the
first of the ?Roth Books is a novelist's autobiography in which the
author presents his own battles defictionalized and unadorned. In the
second Roth book, Deception (1990), a married American named Philip,
living in London, and the married Englishwoman who is his mistress meet
sporadically in a secret trysting place where the woman eloquently
reveals herself to her lover as they talk before and after making love.
In the third Roth book, Patrimony (1991), the author watches as his
86-year-old father, Herman Roth, battles a fatal brain tumor.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
