The Plot Against America - "Book Review"

I read at night all the time.  Yesterday Boss and I spent a wonderful hour in the afternoon by the fire - I read, he slept.  I wanted to finish the book that has mesmerized me for the past month.

I first heard about it on NPR.  It was easy to remember the author - Philip Roth of Good-bye Columbus fame - and when I got home I asked Bob to order it for me through Amazon.  It came quickly as always and I immersed myself in it.  In some ways I am glad it's finished - I thought about it way too much during the day!  I admit to a couple nightmares, too, book-inspired.

The New York Times Book Review on the front cover:  "A terrific political novel....sinister, vivid, dreamlike....creepily plausible...You turn the pages, astonished and frightened."  I usually think sentences like that are hyperbolic - but not this time.

USA Today:  "A breathtaking leap of imagination..."

Published in 2004.

You learn in the first paragraph that this is a fictional history which poses the question - "What would have happened if Lindbergh had defeated FDR?"  In the interview I heard, Roth said it was one of those questions that got batted around and a few years later he developed the novel.  It is a novel - thank goodness.  Or is it?  (My version of hyperbole.)

As I heard in the interview, Roth talked about the election and how Lindbergh, a young hero at the time, was able to commandeer the most powerful job in the world.  His motto - "America First" - is based on the actual tenets of a real movement in 1940, as I am sure you know.

I won't spoil the novel for you.  Roth's writing is wonderful - easy to read but with a depth of insight and "facts" that reminds me at times of Moby Dick - but don't let that keep you from reading it!  The story is about a young boy - Roth himself - growing up in Newark at this time.  His family is Jewish, his life is that of a Jewish boy in an Eastern city.  Terrifyingly real.

I kept comparing the events Roth plotted with the reality of the past two years and the daily political news stories.  So eerie....  I wondered early on if Trump had actually read the book - or friends had - and had put into play some of the methods and techniques.  If his whole Presidency came from the novel.  Published in 2004.

I hope you read it - as the grandmother of Jewish boys growing up in an Eastern city it is so close to my heart right now.  As citizens of America, it may affect you too.