![]() ![]() ![]() (© Mary Brinkmeyer)īailey: In terms of versatility and breadth of achievement, I don’t think there is much to compare it with. What do you make of this accomplishment, and what in American or world letters would you compare with it? Blake Bailey. Amazingly, at the age of sixty-eight, he then goes on in the next ten years to write the seven books published in these two Library of America volumes. LOA: Philip Roth’s career has been marked by a remarkable series of reinventions and transformations: the great breakthrough of Portnoy’s Complaint in the late 60s, the Zuckerman trilogy/epilogue in the late 70s and 80s, the masterpiece Sabbath’s Theater, the American Trilogy in the late 90s. To commemorate the publication of the last two volumes of The Library of America’s definitive Philip Roth edition ( Novels 2001–2007 and Nemeses), he spoke with us recently about Roth’s later works and how he will-and will not-approach the task of writing the biography. Last September Blake Bailey (the prize-winning biographer of Richard Yates and John Cheever) announced that he had agreed to write Philip Roth’s authorized biography, with unfettered access to the writer’s archives and correspondence. Blake Bailey on “the versatility and breadth of achievement” of Philip Roth’s fiction and the challenge of writing his biography ![]()
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