Don’t cancel Philip Roth

Philip Roth is the Hugh Hefner of the American novel: he is the playboy of fiction; he has built a house of pleasure. But now, according to some, it is time to demolish that house. 

A new biography of Roth is about to come out, and some of the details in it are the ammo that Roth’s critics have been waiting for: they have been pounced on as proof that he is a ‘misogynist’ and that there should be no place for him in the era of MeToo.

So what is Roth said to have done, according to Blake Bailey’s new authorised biography? Bailey describes Roth getting bored with his English wife, and going looking for Chinese prostitutes in Mayfair instead. He describes Roth getting older, and his girlfriends getting younger. And he describes how, in an oversubscribed seminar Roth taught in the 1970s, Roth recommended some of the female students be selected on their brains and their beauty.