Completed: The Plot Against America

Kelly,

It feels really good to be getting back on track---especially before school gears up again in a week. I'm definitely hitting that Madonna book next! You've told me it will be fast and fun, and I'd love to be at 8 before Labor Day.

I just finished The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. I've had this book for a long time---at least 5 or 6 years is my guess, maybe more. I don't remember anything specific that made me buy it, but my guess is that I just read a good review of it. It just sounds like the kind of book I'd like: speculative historical fiction. In this novel, Roth creates a different version of the history of WW2. FDR loses in the election for his third term to Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh is a famous pilot, of course, but I guess he was also a Nazi sympathizer. He cashes in on his celebrity and becomes President after swearing to keep American neutral during the War. After his election, he signs a pact with Japan and Germany to stay out of Europe---meaning there is no Pearl Harbor to drag the US into WW2.

Against this somewhat creepy revisionist history, Roth tells the story of...the Roth family of Newark, New Jersey, and 9 year old Philip Roth is the narrator. In other words, the author is the narrator as a child, imagining how his life would have been different if a fascist had come into the White House at exactly the wrong moment. For example, Jews *in America* are subject to special laws and it becomes clear that Lindbergh intends to round up America's Jews and put them in internment camps, there are policies for Jewish resettlement, etc. In order to fight Hitler, young Jewish men (Philip's cousin Alvin is one of them) go off to Canada to fight.

I liked this book. Philip's family is full of interesting characters---his Mother longs to leave for Canada, seeing America is no longer their country. His Father clings to the idea that they will always belong and to leave is rash. Philip's brother Sandy comes to believe his parents are being foolish. The author brilliantly shows  tenor of their family life become confused, then threatened, then terror-filled as events spiral out of control.

More interesting is to see how people change and morph in a pressure cooker. Philip's Mother seems meek and not at all interesting in the beginning, but as time passes, Philip sees that she is the strongest member of his family. In one brilliant scene near the end, she marshals everything she knows in order to save a neighborhood boy. On the other hand, his father shows himself to be a good man with flaws, and certainly more stubborn than insightful. Again, near the end, there's a fascinating scene where his Father has a violent fist-fight with Alvin, the cousin back from Canada. Philip's description of the fight begins with it's aftermath, and a long description of the wreckage not only in their bodies, but also in their home. Only after is there a brief explanation of what started the fight. It was a brilliant scene---how often something small becomes something too big, so much so that the aftermath is more damaging than what started it. Philip understands it is symbolic of political forces winning in their effort to destroy and destabilize Jewish life itself, he observes, "The South Boston riots, the Detroit riots, the Louisville assassination, the Cincinnati firebombing, the mayhem in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Akron, Youngstown, Peoria, Scranton, and Syracuse...and now this: in an ordinary family living room--the anti-Semites were about to be abetted in their exhilarating solution to America's worst problem by our taking up the cudgels and hysterically destroying ourselves" (295). Kelly, it was hard to read these passages without thinking of Ferguson. This small scene perfectly describes how people put under immense pressure sometimes explode--with fury and an impotent and crushing sense of disappointment.

Philip is also an interesting character. As political events become more dangerous, he begins to take matters into his own hands to try to save himself and his family. At one point, he visits his aunt, recently estranged from the family. He says of her, "Never in my life had I so harshly judged any adult...nor had I understood till then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others" (213). We understand in this moment that Philip is becoming an adult in the sense that he is starting to judge and evaluate by himself rather than parroting what adults tell him. But this is a double-edged sword, because by the end of this scene, Philip himself has foolishly set another family on a different and dangerous path. His observation is true of both his aunt and of himself.

It's interesting to consider that a work of speculative history has 2 choices---allow your novel to continue as is, or bump it back into the lane of historical reality. Roth takes the latter path, and has FDR returning to the presidency, engaging in the war, and the standard course of history resumes. However, that leaves little for Roth to do except wrap it up and leave the family to cope with their devastating losses and the knowledge of the harms done to others in an effort to protect themselves. I wouldn't say it's a bad ending, but it sure is abrupt. I actually turned the page looking for the next chapter! After thinking about it a little, I think it's probably a good thing---don't have a great plan for what to do when history returns to normal? Then just end the thing!

How are you doing? Making any progress with the reporting out?
Jenny

PS I did find out that his book won The Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Who knew such a thing existed? I'm going to have to check that out. I might like more books like this one.