by Henry Roth
First published 2015
This collection gathers Henry Roth's complete shorter writings beyond his major novels Call it Sleep, Mercy of a Rude Stream, and A Diving Rock on the Hudson. The thirty-one pieces span from 1925 to 1987 and include all his short stories, the sole surviving chapter from an unfinished second novel he wrote for editor Maxwell Perkins before destroying the manuscript, plus articles and memoir pieces. Italian translator Mario Materassi, Roth's close friend, edited the volume and provides an introduction. The writings appeared in major publications like Atlantic, Commentary, and The New Yorker, alongside pieces from small magazines no longer in print. These melodic stories reveal the reasons behind Roth's famous sixty-year period of creative silence and show early signs of the literary comeback that marked his 1990s renaissance.
Genres: literary-fiction, collections, american-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Period: 1925-1987
369 pages · Kindle Edition · Weidenfeld & Nicolson