The Human Stain

I have always considered Philip Roth to be a master stylist and, even more, a brilliant author of the way that characters think and feel. This book is also wonderful for the way its ironies unfold in a story that is riveting, disturbing, and revealing.

I am intrigued by the way that Roth can confront important social issues. Even though this was written several years ago, I find it to be particularly relevant to the debates about diversity that seem to concern us most as a society today.

Roth’s intolerance of closure is brilliant. Even if it’s a character who loathes the concept of closure, and not Roth himself, this book is incredibly helpful for thinking about cancel culture, the reductive judgments about sex, the cultural purity binges that shame and destroy thinking.

Roth is bold and brave in his writing and the exquisite candor about sex is sometimes upsetting but also enlivening. Roth is not always nice in his writing but the cruelty he describes is an act of service to humanity and he stretches the psyche, 

The Human Stain will expand your attitudes towards race and… show more.