Patrimony : A True Story - Hardcover

Roth, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671703757 ISBN 13: 9780671703752

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1991

Synopsis

In a moving elegy, one of America's most powerful writers recreates his father's ordeal as, suffering from a brain tumor, he battles with the ignominy and helplessness of old age

About this title

Review:

With the honesty of a skilled biographer and the sensitivity of a caring son, Roth chronicles the life of his father, Herman, in this gripping work which won a 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award. Roth holds little back in describing his father as a man of rare intensity and fierce independence who, for better or worse, stood by his principles and held others to his own rigorous standards. Writes Roth, "His obsessive stubbornness--his stubborn obsessiveness--had very nearly driven my mother to a breakdown in her final years." Frank throughout, Roth calls his father "a pitiless realist, but I wasn't his offspring for nothing, and I could be pretty realistic, too."

From the Back Cover:

"A tough-minded, beautifully written memoir. . . . It smacks of honesty and truthfulness on every page." —San Francisco Chronicle

"A deeply resonant portrait of a father and son. . . . Roth has looked past all comfort and condolence to find the truth—about himself and his father; about death and the fear of it; and about the absolute vulnerability to which love condemns us all." —Chicago Tribune

"In a cunningly straightforward way, Patrimony tells one of the central true stories many Americans share nowadays. . . . Such telling is a marvel of artful wit and vigor. . . . It is the triumphant art of the literal . . . the gloriously pragmatic, unpredictable genius of Philip Roth's narrative gifts." —The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0671703757
• ISBN 13: 9780671703752
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238