In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy

Kimmage, Michael

ISBN 10: 0804781826 / ISBN 13: 9780804781824

Published by Stanford University Press, 2012

About this Item

Dust jacket in good condition. Later printing. Shelf and handling wear to cover and binding, with general signs of previous use. CLEAN COVER AND CONTENT PAGES. New protective mylar applied to dust jacket before shipping. See photos for more information. Secure packaging for safe delivery.

Seller Inventory # 1779723698

Bibliographic Details

• Title: In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804781826
• ISBN 13: 9780804781824
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Weight: 1 pound

About this title

Synopsis

In History's Grip concentrates on the literature of Philip Roth, one of America's greatest writers, and in particular on American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, and The Human Stain. Each of these novels from the 1990s uses Newark, New Jersey, to explore American history and character. Each features a protagonist who grows up in and then leaves Newark, after which he is undone by a historically generated crisis. The city's twentieth-century decline from immigrant metropolis to postindustrial disaster completes the motif of history and its terrifying power over individual destiny. In History's Grip is the first critical study to foreground the city of Newark as the source of Roth's inspiration, and to scrutinize a subject Roth was accused of avoiding as a younger writer—history. In so doing, the book brings together the two halves of Roth's decades-long career: the first featuring characters who live outside of history's grip; the second, characters entrapped in historical patterns beyond their ken and control.

About the Author

Michael Kimmage is Associate Professor of History at the Catholic University of America. His is the author of The Conservative Turn (2009).