Roth is back

The vagaries of a writer's career are amazing - exhibit A Philip Roth. I am among those who joined in the chorus condemning his previous short novel, The Humbling, as among the worst things Roth hath wrought. Someone should have told him how dreadful it was before he went ahead and let it be published. But now, for any in despair that his career was set to be mummified in the 9-volume Library of America set, his new novel, "Nemesis," is clearly among his best in years, maybe among his best ever. It's short and poignant and provocative. For anyone who's even dared to think there's nothing new Roth could say about Newark in the '40s, he finds yet another way to examine and re-create his native city. This novel about a gym teacher, Bucky Cantor, who's working as a playground supervisor during the polio epidemic of 1944. He's the hero to the boys at the playground because of his athletic prowess and his bravery (he stands down a group of Italian teenage toughs who show up one day to taunt the Jewish kids). But he's also tormented because his poor eyesight has kept him out of the war. Mostly, the story is about how one kid after another is hit by polio, and the fear this spreads across the community, also the hatred and paranoia - ultimately, some of the grieving parents blame Bucky for allowing the kids to exert themselves in the summer heat, and he feels he may be the cause of the spread of the disease. The story is deeply imbued with symbolism/analogy - much like Camus' The Plague, for example, and in Bucky's ranting against a God who would create polio he touches on the lamentations of Holocaust literature. Many have said, rightly, that Roth is very weak on women characters, and though this is a male-dominated book his protrayal of Bucky's girlfriend and their tender, strained relationship is very touching and thoughtful. Roth is back.