Roth's Wars

In this energetically written text, James Bloom takes aim at Roth’s soldering life and hits the target on every page exposing the conflict between Roth’s attraction to military service and grasp of the realities of war. Revealing Roth’s attitude toward the military and the nature of sports wars, Newark wars and Jewish wars, Bloom traces the heroic and not so heroic actions of martial Roth and his characters. Without a doubt, Bloom hits the bullseye.

-- Ira Nadel, The University of British Columbia

The Great Philip Roth has passed and it is left to professional Roth scholars to make sense of the massive, complex oeuvre he left behind. Rising to the task is professor Jim Bloom in Roth's Wars, a detailed and thoughtful study which makes a very compelling case for the centrality of violence, combat, strife and military ideation to Philip Roth nearly six decades of fictional creation. In so doing, Bloom proposes an original conceptual throughline that lets us rethink the priorities and thematic obsessions of the author. The case he makes is clear, erudite and compelling.

-- Jacques Berlinerblau, Georgetown Univer