I have to say that I really enjoyed Philip Roth’s I Married A Communist. It is part of the American Trilogy that also includes American Pastoral and The Human Stain, both of which I have yet to read. Roth tackles the usual Rothian themes of sex, marriage, and the Jewish American experience, but the post war political themes interested me despite the fact that our popular culture has been inundated with references to McCarthyism and the Red Scare with movies like Good Night, and Good Luck. Nathan Zuckerman tells the larger than life story of Ira Ringold aka Iron Rinn, the left leaning radio actor that was doomed to fall. His story is one of rising above his modest beginnings as an uneducated ditch digger to the lofty height so the upper Eastside that ends in humiliation and betrayal. Roth doe an excellent job of recreating post WWII America and its attitudes. The story within the story is the story of Nathan Zuckerman’s development and surrogate father that helped lead him to become a novelist.
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