Philip Roth "The Plot Against America" (Vintage)
I really wanted to like this. I've heard good things about the novel.
Roth tweaks 1940s history, imagining how his native USA might have been if Roosevelt had lost the presidential elections to Lindbergh - the aviator, who was also anti-Semitic and isolationist (opposed to involving his country in Europe's War).
He brings out the 'human side' to what could just be a political tale, by narrating it as his nine-year-old self; watching his family affected by events such as a state initiative to deport Jews. His cousin determines to help in the War but has to go to Canada to join up. Other families settle in Canada, feeling safer there, while other Jews go along with Lindbergh's government for self-seeking motives.
The idea here is also interesting, and I like the way he worked so hard to bring as much fact as he could from the writing of actual historical figures into this what-if version of WWII period US political history (from the point of view of a Jewish boy in Newark not surprisingly named Philip Roth). The problem I have is that his writing has become so self-indulgent and long-winded. He uses dashes - which enclose extended side-stream discourses which often delve into mostly irrelevant and uninteresting matters - way too much. Where was his editor? Or is he so full of himself now that no one can get him to maintain basic writing disciplines? I agree with others who have described how he could build towards a climate of fear even when there's not much happening to explicitly justify the fear; this was skillfully done. But in the end, I just found myself wanting to get the book over with rather than enjoying the experience.
This was my first Roth book I read and so it has tainted my liking for the author.
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