Patrimony: A True Story/ Philip Roth. New York : Simon and Schuster, c1991 (238 p.)

I last attempted to read Philip Roth in the 1970s, and did not find it a pleasant experience. However, a friend of mine handed me this book as she let me off at the airport and I spent the next four hours immersed in Roth's recollections and descriptions of his father; Herman Roth, 86, and newly diagnosed with a brain tumor. It is a story Roth writes with love and tenderness in his trademark muscular style. Herman comes fully to life for the reader, who sees much of the twentieth century through his cranky and pragmatic eyes.

Roth's Patrimony Original