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Philip Roth: Stung by Life
Philip Roth: Stung by Life
By Steven J. Zipperstein
Published October 14, 2025
368 pages
“A work of literature itself” —Judith Thurman, author of Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller
A landmark biography of one of our most prominent chroniclers of American life
In this groundbreaking literary biography, Steven J. Zipperstein captures the complex life and astonishing work of Philip Roth (1933–2018), one of America’s most celebrated writers. Born in Newark, New Jersey—where his short stories and books were often set—Roth wrote with ambition and awareness of what was required to produce great literature. No writer was more dedicated to his craft, even as he was rubbing shoulders with the Kennedys and engaging in a spate of famous and infamous romances. And yet, as much as Roth wrote about sex and self, he viewed himself as socially withdrawn, living much like an “unchaste monk” (his words).
Zipperstein explores the unprecedented range of Roth’s work—from “Goodbye, Columbus” and Portnoy’s Complaint to the Pulitzer Prize–winning American Pastoral and The Plot Against America. Drawing on extensive archival materials and over one hundred interviews, including conversations with Roth about his life and work, Zipperstein provides an intimate and insightful look at one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers, placing his work in the context of his obsessions, as well as American Jewishness, freedom, and sexuality.
About the Author
Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing and Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Author Photograph © Nan Phelps
Reviews
“Slim and eloquent…consistently insightful…dishes head-turning revelations from archives and informants, at times in a gossipy tone.” —Jewish Review of Books
“Well-modulated and immensely erudite. . . . This biography will introduce Roth to new readers as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century and one of the most influential voices in shaping American Jewish identity.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This is one of the fairest and finest literary biographies I have read, with the emphasis on literary. Zipperstein does Philip Roth and his life’s work more than justice. He has produced a book that is a work of literature itself. Not every writer is what Roth called (and was called) ‘a writer’s writer.’ And not every scribe who undertakes to write a major life is truly a writer’s biographer. Zipperstein is one.” —Judith Thurman, author of Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller
“Steven Zipperstein’s appreciation of Philip Roth is literary biography at its best. Acute and original judgments of Roth’s written worlds come embraided with revelatory portrayals of the worlds Roth inhabited, scrutinized, and provoked, and of Roth himself, solemn and hilarious, voraciously curious, a boundless sensual spirit riven by his craft.” —Sean Wilentz, author of Bob Dylan in America
