Portnoy's Complaint

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Portnoy's Complaint (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

Portnoy's Complaint is not only the title of this novel, it is also the illness defined in an epigraph that precedes the book: “A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.” Alexander Portnoy, after whom the disease is named, is a young Jewish professional, the Assistant Commissioner for Human Opportunity in New York City. After a recent trip to Israel in which he discovers, to his dismay, that he has become impotent, he seeks the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. Otto...

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See Also:

• Philip Roth (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
• Philip Roth (Short Fiction)
• Philip Roth (Long Fiction)
• Philip Roth (Identities and Issues)
• Philip Roth (Sixties in America)
• Portnoy’s Complaint (American Ethnic Writers)
• Portnoy’s Complaint (Censorship)
• Portnoy’s Complaint (Character Profiles)
• Portnoy’s Complaint (Literary Places)
• Portnoy’s Complaint (Masterplots Classics)

See Also:

• - Portnoy's Complaint summary and study guide in the quickNotes.