Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

Derek Parker Royal (Western Illinois University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2004

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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In many ways,

The Plot Against America

stands out as an anomaly within Philip Roth's oeuvre, if not in substance, then at least in the degree to which he uses his various narrative devices. For instance, Roth has written alternate (or at least speculative) histories before, such as in

The Ghost Writer

(1979) or the story “ ‘I've Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting'; or, Looking at Kafka” (1973), but never outside of the realm of a character's “imaginings”. He has taken on very contemporary political issues before–most notably his scathing rendering of Richard Nixon in Our Gang (1971)–but not without the distancing mask of satire. And perhaps most significantly,

The Plot Against America

is one of the few works of fiction to be narrated or focalized through the…

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2128 words

Citation: Royal, Derek Parker. "The Plot Against America". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 December 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16607, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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