Nemesis

By Philip Roth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Philip Roth's 2010 novel is set in Newark in the summer of 1944, when a polio epidemic sweeps through the city's Jewish neighborhood. Bucky Cantor, a twenty-three-year-old playground director kept out of the war by poor eyesight, tries to protect the children in his care. As they fall ill, he struggles with guilt, faith, duty and a growing anger at God.

Recommended by 1 person

• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”