by Philip Roth
First published 1974
Peter Tarnopol is a writer drowning in the wreckage of his personal life. Trapped between his failed marriage to the volatile Maureen and his desperate attempts to understand his own catastrophic romantic choices, he begins writing stories that blur the lines between memoir and invention. Each narrative becomes a calculated reconstruction, a way to control the chaotic details of his own disastrous relationships. As Peter attempts to rewrite his personal history through fiction, he confronts the dangerous spaces between truth, memory, and self-deception. His stories become weapons and shields, revealing how a writer might use language to survive—or escape—his own worst impulses.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, biographical-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: United States
Period: 20th-century
330 pages · Hardcover · Holt Rinehart Winston