Sabbath's Theater

Sabbath's Theater Synopsis

ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

"A dirty and depraved masterpiece." -Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times

"An astonishment and a scourge, and one of the strangest achievements of fictional prose that I have ever read. . . . It is very exquisite." -James Wood, The New Republic

"This splendidly wicked book. . . . The energy of the book is amazing. . . . Roth is hilariously serious about life and death." -Frank Kermode, The New York Review of Books

Sabbath's Theater is a comic creation of epic proportions, and Mickey Sabbath is its gargantuan hero. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his longtime mistress-an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring surpassed even his own-Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past.

Bereft and grieving, besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.