The Facts (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Philip Roth
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Autobiography
- Time of Work: The 1930's to the 1970's
- Setting: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Chicago, New York, and Massachusetts
- Principal Characters: Philip Roth, Nathan Zuckerman, Herman Roth, Bob Maurer, Charlotte Maurer, Polly Bates, Josie, May Aldridge
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Memory, Love or romance, Writing, Jews or Jewish life, Anti-Semitism
- Locales: New York, Chicago, IL, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey
Though Moby Dick (1851) begins with the words “Call me Ishmael,” only the most naïve reader would call Herman Melville by that name. A first-person narrator is as fictional—and nonfictional—as any other character that authors insert into their creations. Erica Jong's first novel, Fear of Flying (1974), is the bawdy story of a randy young woman named Isadora Wing who happened to have much in common with her inventor. Its sequel, How to Save Your Own Life (1977), portrays Isadora agonizing over the fact that almost everyone assumes that her first novel,...
[The entire page is 2180 words long]
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