In 'the stifling heat of equatorial Newark', a terrifying epidemic is raging, threatening the children of the New Jersey city with maiming, paralysis, life-long disability, even death. This is the startling and surprising theme of Roth's wrenching new book: a wartime polio epidemic in the summer of 1944 and the effect it has on a closely-knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children. At the centre of Nemesis is a vigorous, dutiful, twenty-three-year old playground director, Bucky Cantor, a javelin thrower and a weightlifter, who is devoted to his charges and disappointed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war alongside his contemporaries. Focusing on Cantor's dilemmas as polio begins to ravage his playground - and on the everyday realities he faces - Roth leads us through every inch of emotion such a pestilence can breed: the fear, the panic, the anger, the bewilderment, the suffering, and the pain.
"Roth's book has the elegance of a fable and the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama."--"The New Yorker"
"An artfully constructed, suspenseful novel with a cunning twist towards the end."--J. M. Coetzee, "New York Review of Books"
"Elegant. . . . Suffused with precise and painful tenderness. . . . Stands out for its warmth." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Painful and powerful. . . . Somberly but vividly, [Roth] recreates the panic and fear triggered by polio." --"USA Today"
"A perfectly proportioned Greek tragedy played out against the background of the polio epidemic that swept Newark, New Jersey, during the summer of 1944." --"Financial Times"
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"Like a very well-executed O. Henry story. . . . A parable about the embrace of conscience. . . .and what its suffocating, life-denying consequences can be." -Michiko Kakutani, "The""New York Times"
"Yet another small triumph from one of our native artists largest in spirit. And by small Ia
Title: Nemesis
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Philip Roth
ISBN 13: 9780099542261
ISBN 10: 0099542269
Publisher: Vintage
Imprint: Vintage
Publication Date: 1/12/2011
Place of Publication:
London,
United Kingdom
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Dewey Classification:
813.54
(DC22)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Height: 198mm
Width: 129mm
Thickness: 19mm
Weight: 217g