One science fiction staple is the alternate history, but in this case, it’s being tried by a mainstream author. The novel posits that Charles Lindbergh becomes president in 1940 instead of Franklin Roosevelt, and as a result, America makes a secret pact with Hitler, and programs to isolate and eventually imprison American Jews are begun.

The story is told from the point of view of a 9-year-old Jewish boy, filtered through the small world of his Newark neighborhood, his Jewish neighbors and his family life. I found the story interesting and engaging, although Roth’s writing style is a bit long-winded for me at times.

There were two things about the story that ultimately disappointed me, though. The first was that the ending, which put everything back in order, was a little too pat to be believed. The second was that the Lindbergh election and a few related events were the only changes to history; real history took up more or less where it left off once the Lindbergh administration was ousted. More interesting questions - such as what did the Germans do with that extra time before America entered the war? defeat Russia? invent the bomb? - were never explored. I realize that wasn’t Roth’s point, that he was instead examining the incipience of fascism in a seemingly free society and quite possibly commenting on current events, but as a fan of alternate history, I was left feeling very unsatisfied.

I had read the reviews and I was not sure what to make of it. On one hand people raved about the story and on the other people couldn’t even finish it due to Roth’s writing style. I am happy to say that Philip Roth is one of my new favorite authors.

I picked this up in the hope that it would have lived up to it’s hype. It really didn’t. I had a hard time motivating myself to get through the book, and when I finally did, I found the ended quite anti climatic.

I didn’t care for Roth’s writing style much. He seems to like run-on sentences, and I found them quite annoying. The story line drags along slowly, and the only reason I finished this one was out of curiosity and hope that the end would make it worth it.

It’s an intriguing concept: Charles Lindbergh has defeated Roosevelt and the United States becomes an isolationist country (with Nazi sympathies) during World War II, but Roth’s story (told by a 9-to-11-year-old version of himself) drags throughout the novel. Unfortunately, telling it from the point of view of a child without many insights from his adult self is what keeps the book from picking up velocity. Young Philip’s musings about his stamp book and his various family members bog the book down in superfluous details. While yes, the book is an alternate family history as well as an Orwellian account of what America could have been in the 1940s, I found myself craving for more news of what was happening in Europe throughout the book instead of hearing family members whine about their fates over and over again.

In sum, I’m not disappointed I read it; it’s definitely worth a skim, but it doesn’t deserve all the acclaim it’s been getting, that’s for sure.

Philip Roth seems to have thought of two different ways to tell this story. The first has to do with an interesting espionage plot that gets hatched and changes history, involves luminaries of mid century history, and basically is a pretty interesting idea. Roth spins this part of the story out in newsreels and an omniscient narrators voice – and while it makes for the overall thrust of the novel – it is given short shrift. Instead, Roth labors over his other idea which involves the Roth family in Newark and telling the story of President Lindbergh’s defeat of FDR and tilt toward fascism through the eyes of a nine year old boy trying to make sense of his feelings, family, and nation at a time of trial. While this idea of telling the story through young Philip’s eyes has its moments, it also gets incredibly tedious, especially when Roth starts to describe some particularly active part of the story, only to spin back and go on a 5 page diversion before rejoining the action. Did I mention that I thought the storytelling was a mess? I have a hard time that any young novelist would get such a book published, let alone get the sort of praise Roth has reaped. While I was glad I read it, I was even more glad when it was done.

I’m slogging through. I’m around page 220 and I do find it pretty tedious. It is disturbing that Roth’s style is actually making me sympathetic toward Sandy and his aunt, and tired of the shrillness of his parents. I’m sure this feeling will cleverly turn against me once the pogrom kicks in.

Does it get better?

I’m 30 pages in and not loving it. This is the first Philip Roth I’ve read, the plot (as I understand it) is right up my alley, but I’m falling asleep every 5-6 pages. I was hoping for a contemporary version of Jack London’s “Iron Heel”. So far, the book makes me feel like a West Coast lumberjack 30 something, interloping on a New Jersey Jewish boomer dystopia.