Letting Go

by Philip Roth, Luke Daniels (Read by)

Overview

Letting Go is Roth's first full-length novel, published just after Goodbye, Columbus, when he was twenty-nine. Set in 1950s Chicago, New York, and Iowa city, Letting Go presents as brilliant a fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined by social and ethical constraints and by moral compulsions conspicuously different from those of today.
Newly discharged from the Korean War army, reeling from his mother's recent death, freed from old attachments and hungrily seeking others, Gabe Wallach is drawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate student in literature, and to Libby, Paul's moody, intense wife. Gabe's desire to be connected to the ordered "world of feeling" that he finds in books is first tested vicariously by the anarchy of the Herzes' struggles with responsible adulthood and then by his own eager love affairs. Driven by the desire to live seriously and act generously, Gabe meets an impassable test in the person of Martha Reganhart, a spirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, a formidable woman who, according to critic James Atlas, is masterfully portrayed with "depth and resonance."
The complex liason between Gabe and Martha and Gabe's moral enthusiasm for the trials of others are at the heart of this tragically comic work.

Author Biography: In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212383790
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	09/03/2024
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Philip Roth (1933–2018) was one of the most decorated writers in American history, having won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and many more.

Hometown:

Connecticut

Date of Birth:

March 19, 1933

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

B.A. in English, Bucknell University, 1954; M.A. in English, University of Chicago, 1955

Editorial Reviews

The protagonist of Roth's first full-length novel vicariously explores the angst of love and marriage. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Letting Go is further proof of Mr. Roth's astonishing talent…. Its emotional tension is nerve-racking, its psychological insight convincing. Mr. Roth has a phenomenal ear for colloquial dialogue. He is an effective storyteller…. Letting Go seethes with life.… The most talented novelist under 30 in America.” —The New York Times

"A first novel of awesome maturity." —James Atlas

"A rich book, full of incident, wry and sad and even in its most desolating scene somehow amusing." —Elizabeth Hardwick, Harper's

"[Roth] has the finest eye for the details of American life since Sinclair Lewis." —Stanley Edgar Hyman

From the Publisher

Philip Roth has written a number of novels that can fairly be called masterpieces, but his first is not one of them. It far exceeds most first novels but only hints at the coming glories of THE GHOST WRITER, AMERICAN PASTORAL, THE HUMAN STAIN, and others. Narrator Luke Daniels strives mightily, but not excessively, to bring out every emotional nuance of the text, and mostly does well by it. However, when the characters lack New York accents, the dialogue can be a bit confusing. Nonetheless, Roth's fans should not miss this taste of the master in his youth. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2009 - AudioFile