Written by John Winters   

There are many things that can make a critical biography a must-read. Access and insight are two of them, and in “Roth Unbound: A Writer and his Books,” Claudia Roth Pierpont provides both in spades.

Philip Roth has collected every major writing award short of the Nobel, and arguably stands as America’s premier living novelist. His storied career encompasses more than 30 books, with plenty of accompanying drama and controversy, though much of that is long past.

Now that his career has been capped by retirement (though Pierpont thinks this is a passing phase), it’s time to assess Roth, the man and writer. “Not since Henry James, it seems to me, has an American novelist worked at such a sustained pitch of concentration and achievement, book after book,” Pierpont writes early on, laying out the general direction her critique will take.

“Roth Unbound” takes us chronologically through the venerated novelist’s life and work. Pierpont details his youth in pre-war Newark, N.J., to his recent time as a man of leisure, with stops at the teaching posts, women, international involvements, and crises in between. While this comprises the meat of the book, the real pleasure in these pages is what the author’s friendship with Roth provides: rare insight into his books and all that went into them. While it’s impossible for any critic or biographer to enter the mind of her subject or to experience up close the wheels of creativity as they grind away, Pierpont comes as close as one can hope to.


For several years, Pierpont has been a friend of Roth’s. And while one must make some small allowances for this throughout “Roth Unbound,” the upside far outweighs any apparent bias. His comments to her, dutifully recorded, provide key insights into his work. While Roth is far from Pynchonian, he isn’t exactly a media whore. Hence these glimpses into the master’s oeuvre are entertaining and enlightening and not likely to be found elsewhere so explicitly stated. Pierpont goes into some detail about Roth’s writing process, how he spins incidents and ideas into characters, plots and themes. She had access not only to the man and some of his contemporaries, but also to recordings of his teaching a course at Bard College on his own books.

Pierpont reminds us of Roth’s great influences: Thomas Wolfe, J.D. Salinger and Saul Bellow – no surprises here. However, news to me was that the maternal relationship in “Portnoy’s Complaint,” his 1969 bestselling novel, was based on his brother Sandy’s connection to their mother. Roth’s obsession with his first wife’s lies about a faux pregnancy and abortion, and suicidal impulses over his back problems were both revelations, if not in fact, then in degree.

Some of this biographical material is covered in Roth’s books, “The Facts,” “Reading Myself and Others” and “Patrimony,” as well as various interviews. (Blake Bailey is working on the doorstop of a biography with Roth’s cooperation that will be out in a few years.) But throughout, Pierpont connects the life to the writing. After all, much sport has been had over the decades trying to untangle Roth’s biography from his fiction. Pierpont reminds us that the author has put down his thoughts on the necessary chasm between “the unwritten world and the world that emerges from his typewriter.” Then again, he also credits reality’s place within the imaginative: “Art is life, too, you know,” he once told an interviewer. “Roth Unbound” allows readers who care to do so to figure out where the fault lies are between reality and fiction.

As for her critiques of Roth’s work, Pierpont encapsulates the plot of each book, reports on the critical and public reception, and adds her own insights into why some books work better than others. She’s not afraid to take her friend to task. Nowhere in “Roth Unbound” does she seem to go easy on the author’s work, though I think she enjoyed “The Ghost Writer” more than most. If anything, she’s sometimes a bit too rough: My estimations of “Zuckerman Unbound” and “The Breast” are quite a bit higher than hers. Overall, her assessments are on the money.

Some readers have complained that Pierpont defends Roth a tad too strenuously over the allegations of misogyny that have dogged him for years. If she doth protest too much, so what? These are old and recurring charges that Roth fans have had to deal with since the first time the author used the word shiksa. Yes, Times critic Michiko Kakutani is no fan, nor are legions of feminists. And early on, members of Roth’s own tribe accused him of being a self-hating Jew and of bringing infamy to his people. However, Roth has outlasted all of it, and the only ones interested in furthering those battles nowadays are the ones who refuse to lay down their arms. To the rest of the world all this is the stuff of footnotes.

“Roth Unbound” is also remarkable for Pierpont’s own prose. The New Yorker staffer’s writing is powerful and evocative. She describes Roth’s late protagonists as men “caught up in the grinding machinery of history.” She finds in one of the author’s lesser works if not profundity, at least sharp observations of “the human carnival,” writing: “If the klieg lights are anchored in wartime New Jersey (they have to be anchored somewhere, don’t they?), their beams sweep the sky.”

“Roth Unbound” is a must for fans of Philip Roth or of literary fiction in general. Roth’s career is being evaluated for posterity now that he’s given up the game, and Pierpont’s contribution will stand the test of time for its insightful commentary and highly readable style. The book aptly conveys a true love of fiction and puts a famed American author in context.

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