Philip Roth, I Married a Communist

David Rampton (University of Ottawa)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
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 1998

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

I Married a Communist

(1998) is part of a trilogy -- with

American Pastoral

(1997) and

The Human Stain

(2000) -- in which Roth offers his take on some crucial periods in twentieth-century American history. Focussing on the anti-communist fervor in the United States after World War Two,

I Married a Communist

tells the story of Ira Ringold, a ditchdigger turned radio star, famous for playing figures like Abraham Lincoln in debates about slavery and for criticizing American capitalism and the way it treats its workers. He is one of Roth’s most sharply drawn characters: his credulity, impulsiveness, single-mindedness, and self-destructiveness affect his personal life as profoundly as they do his political adventures, and Roth supplies detailed accounts of both. But he is also something of a…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2412 words

Citation: Rampton, David. "I Married a Communist". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 September 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21009, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article