Author winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2011.
Sarah Broadhurst's view...
A stunning work, a literary
giant and a thrilling read. The reactions of the Jewish population of
Newark on the election of Charles Lindberg, known to be a Nazi
sympathiser, is portrayed in a masterly fashion. There is a summary of
historical facts at the end for those who are confused; I needed it.
Comparison: Norman Mailer, John Updike.
Similar this month: Tom Wolfe.
This review is provided by bookgroup.info.
Philip Roth just gets better. This, his latest novel, is a stunning achievement.
In THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, Roth poses a terrifying, yet perfectly plausible, ‘what if..’: What if Charles Lindbergh, suave aviator hero and proto-fascist, had become President of the United States in 1941?
Roth constructs a chilling scenario where America not only fails to engage in World War II and prevent Hitler’s march across Europe, but allows its government to implement anti-Semitic programmes that are sending it on the road towards a ‘final solution’ for the Jewish population.
The story is told in the voice of Philip Roth, nine-year-old second generation American Jew, living in Newark, New Jersey. The perspective of the young boy is not only completely convincing – his limited understanding, his undeserved guilt, his admiration for less than worthy heroes – but it also creates an empathetic viewpoint for the terrible events that shape the lives of his family and friends. The story is engrossing, Roth’s characterisation is, as always, deft – Philip’s father, brother, cousin, uncle are all too plausible in their fallibility – and the effortless brilliance of some of the passages is breath-taking.
My only reservation about the book is that it is written about an era, twenty three years before the Jim Crow laws were repealed, when segregation – in schools, restaurants, cinemas, buses - was not only commonplace but was legal. By ignoring this fundamental aspect of American social history, and writing it from a purely Jewish standpoint, Roth leaves a gaping hole in the narrative of an otherwise fantastic novel.
Written in the context of the ‘soft fascism’ of the Bush regime and the erosion of civil liberties in the UK, the novel serves to remind us of how fragile racial tolerance can be and how we should guard against a complacence that allows discrimination, legal or otherwise, in our multi-cultural societies.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Recommendations: |
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Closing date: 04/07/2026
Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history—the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president—is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America-and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. "A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened." — The New York Times Book Review.
The Plot Against America features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
The Plot Against America is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Plot Against America was written by Philip Roth and published by Mariner Books an imprint of HMH Books
The Plot Against America has 400 pages
