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Roth, Philip (Author); Lethem, Jonathan; O'Brien, Edna; Pierpont, Claudia Roth & Finkielkraut, Alain : Philip Roth At 80: A Celebration: The Library Of America Commemorative Keepsake

Library Of America, New York City, NY, 2014

ISBN 1598534130

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 80 pages. Commemorative Keepsake. The first and only edition. None of the copies was commercially sold to the public. The First Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by LOA: Regular-sized volume format. Green hard boards with gilt titles embossed on the cover and spine, as issued. Text by Jonathan Lethem, Hermione Lee, Alain Finkielkraut, Claudia Roth Pierpont, and Edna O'Brien. Response by Philip Roth. Printed on pristine-white, archival stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents "Philip Roth At 80: A Celebration". Originally delivered in person on March 19, 2013 at the Newark Museum New Jersey. Newark is, of course, Roth's birthplace and literary landscape. The speeches appear in their final form, as all of the contributing writers made revisions to their oral remarks. Roth's response, "The Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction", appears as the concluding piece. In 2012, the greatest American writer of our time unexpectedly announced that he was retiring, after completing "Nemesis" (2010), the final volume of his "Nemeses" Quartet. He also cooperated with two major projects: "Roth Unmasked", the award-winning PBS documentary, and "Roth Unbound", Claudia Roth Pierpont's critical biography. In addition to Harold Bloom's idiosyncratic and influential commentary on Roth's novels, the documentary and biography are unsurpassed in the history of modern American literature as critique and celebration at the same time. Roth's achievement was to make the anguished, unstoppable, and torrential Jewish voice THE voice of modern American literature. "The books aren't Jewish because they have Jews in them. They're Jewish in the way they're sprung both from harangue AND from defense against harangue" (Jonathan Lethem). An unabashed patriot who crossed swords with fellow Jewish-Americans he deemed insufficiently patriotic, Roth insisted that despite nationalist and Fascist impulses and forces - the Trumpian present has deep historical precedents; Roth presciently noted in "The Plot Against America" that "all the assurances are provisional, even here in a two-hundred-year-old democracy" - , America gave unrepayable refuge to the Jews and so many other peoples. Philip Roth died on May 22, 2018 of congestive heart failure, literally of heartbreak, at the age of 85. An absolute "must-have" title for Philip Roth collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the title page by Philip Roth. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great collection. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Roth did NOT sign most copies. A rare signed copy thus. Six of Philip Roth's novels were selected as among the Top 20 works of American fiction of the last 25 years: "American Pastoral", "The Counterlife", "Operation Shylock", "Sabbath's Theater", "The Human Stain", and "The Plot Against America". One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER PHILIP ROTH TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1598534130.

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