The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography

By Philip Roth

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs

Philip Roth's 1988 memoir describes his life from his childhood in Newark through his college years at Bucknell, his early success as a writer and his disastrous first marriage. The account is framed by a letter to his fictional character Nathan Zuckerman and a long reply from Zuckerman, who questions how much of the truth a novelist can tell about himself.

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• 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.”