Outliving both and borne aloft by an extraordinary second wind, Roth wrote more novels than either of them. “Updike and Bellow hold their flashlights out into the world, reveal the world as it is now,” Roth once said. Nine of Roth’s novels are narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, a novelist whose career closely parallels that of his creator. The protagonist of “Operation Shylock” is a character named Philip Roth, who is being impersonated by another character, who has stolen Roth’s identity. “Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life is my life,” Roth told Hermione Lee in a 1984 interview in The Paris Review.

Source: The Irish Times May 23, 2018 08:05 UTC