Plot Against America, Roth employs the actual fact of himself as an eight-year-old and of his family in Newark in the early 1940s. He could have just as easily used, say, his Zuckerman persona as narrator, but this would have added another fictional level to a plot already based on what we know to be a fantasy-like recreation of history. By using his real self as protagonist, the illusion is strengthened that this could all have possibly happened as related.

There is another dimension to alternative histories often overlooked. Americans in general are not known for being especially knowledgeable about history, even their own history. Many readers can be reflexively dismissive of alternative histories, simply because they know that such events did not occur and presumably could not have occurred. But what about people who don't even know basic history? The Plot Against America occurs in a (now) still relatively recent period—only about 80 years ago. But what if the book continues to be read at some future point where the events of World War II are no longer well-known to the general public ? One can't be sure that even now, most people know the actual facts in any detail. In such a case, Roth's book could seem absolutely real, especially because the author is Philip Roth and the narrator is "Philip Roth." The book could then seem indistinguishable from a factual memoir, in spite of being a novel and an alternative-history novel at that.

Roth's alternate history novel includes a number of real-life historical figures, most of whom are accurately presented, but one who is shown as quite different from his actual beliefs and actions. Roth also included his own family as characters, imagining them growing up in this alternate reality.

Charles Lindbergh

The most famous and accomplished aviator in US history was also a believer in anti Semitism, white supremacy, and eugenics. In real life, Lindbergh even carried out a bizarre personal experiment of having children with half a dozen women in the name of improving the white race. The novel imagines him signing non aggression pacts with Germany and Japan and then disappearing mysteriously, with his vice president becoming dictatorial.

Burton Wheeler

Governor of and then Senator from Montana, Wheeler was a progressive who supported civil rights, labor rights, and unions and was opposed to war, censorship, and martial law. Roth's novel bizarrely imagines him as an opportunist Vice President who imposes martial law and removes Jews to the west of the US.

Henry Ford

The auto maker was the most dedicated anti-Semite in the US in the 1930s. He publicly praised Hitler, was awarded a medal by him, and gave him a Sieg Heil salute. Ford used his factories to recruit Nazis and others on the far right, and he used his fortune to publish the Dearborn Independent, which was devoted entirely to promoting hatred of Jews. Everyone who bought a Ford received a free subscription to the paper. In Roth's novel, he becomes Secretary of the Interior.

Roth's novel also includes broadcaster Walter Winchell, Mayor of New York Fiorello Laguardia, and prominent Jewish leaders Bernard Baruch and Henry Morgenthau. All three were Democratic Party leaders in real life, but Roth's novel depicts them as imprisoned by Wheeler.

Roth re-imagines himself as a child at the time, his relatives and neighbors either removed to the west or fleeing to Canada to avoid the waves of anti-Semitic rioting in the US. The novel ends with Franklin Roosevelt elected in 1944 after Japan bombs Pearl Harbor—an ironic but unlikely outcome.

Phillip Roth's novel, "The Plot Against America" is a compelling novel of alternative history.  The setting is era of Franklin Roosevelt, but instead of FDR becoming president, prior to WWII, Charles Lindbergh is elected.  Lindbergh was a great pilot for the United States, but he was also an isolationist and anti-Semitic.  The novel is centered around this specific era in history and Roth incorporates his family as the main characters with the premise of what happens if Lindbergh is elected President and forms a friendly relationship between Hitler's Germany and the US.

The main characters are Herman and Besse Roth, Phillip who is nine years old in the novel, Sandy Roth who is Phillip's older brother as well as their Jewish neighbors. 

"Roth brings in many historical characters: Father Coughlin, the extremist Catholic priest; Walter Winchell, the Jewish newspaper reporter Lindbergh; the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop; Fiorello La Guardia; and many others."

However, the main characters are the Roth family, their neighbors and extended family.