Episode 7: Zuckerman Bound

Naomi Fry and Matthew Schneier join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Roth's most famous work, the groundbreaking comic rant, Portnoy's Complaint.Naomi Fry is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the host of the Critics at Large podcast.Matthew Schneier is the chief restaurant critic at New York Magazine.

Wesley Morris and Sam Anderson join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Roth's nonfiction masterpiece, Patrimony.Wesley Morris is a two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning critic forthe New York Times, and the host of the podcast Cannonball. Sam Anderson, a staff writer for the Times Magazine, is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, the author of the book BOOMTOWN, and the host of the podcast Animal.https://www.nytimes.com/by/wesley-morrishttps://www.nytimes.com/by/sam-anderson

Essayist and fiction writer Tom Beller joins host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's very first book, Goodbye, Columbus.Tom Beller was a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and is a professor and Director of Creative Writing at Tulane University. He is the winner of the 2015 New York City Book Award, a Robert Silvers Grant for Works in Progress, and a 2021 ATLAS grant from the state of Louisiana. A long time contributor to the New Yorker and The New York Times, his novel, The Sleep-Over Artist, was a New York Times Notable Book, and a Los Angeles Times Best Book. He is also author of Seduction Theory: Stories, How To Be a Man: Essays, J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist, and Lost in the Game: A Book about Basketball. His memoir, Degas at the Gas Station: My Childhood, My Fatherhood, is forthcoming in the spring of 2025 from Duke University.

Writers Hannah Gold and Giles Harvey join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's four-part autofictional saga, Zuckerman Bound. With special emphasis on The Prague Orgy.More about Giles and Hannah:https://www.nytimes.com/by/giles-harveyhttps://thisobscureobject.tumblr.com/about

Rebecca Panovka, co-founder of The Drift, Rachel Poser, editor at the New York Times Magazine, and David S. Wallace, who has written for the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and elsewhere, join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's I Married a Communist.To learn more about the Philip Roth Personal Library, visit prpl.npl.org.

Historian Corey Robin and The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss The Plot Against America, Philip Roth's counter-historical novel, in which fascist-sympathizer Charles A. Lindbergh becomes President of the United States.Corey Robin is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other publications, Robin is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the American Political Science Association. He is the author of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, The Reactionary Mind, and Fear. Andrew Marantz, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has contributed to the magazine since 2011, writing extensively about technology, social media, politics, and the press, and also about comedy and pop culture. He has written about virtual-reality narratives, hip-hop purism, and the “Truman Show” delusion, plus dozens of Talk of the Town pieces. He is the author of Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.To learn more about the Philip Roth Personal Library, visit prpl.npl.org.

New York Times reporters Emma Goldberg and Marc Tracy join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Operation Shylock, Philip Roth's manic "confession" about Israel, doubles and Diasporism. Emma Goldberg is a reporter for the New York Times who covers business, economic shifts, and the culture of work. She profiled the Israeli peace activist, Vivian Silver, who was killed in the October 7th attacks, for the Times Magazine, and is the author of Life on the Line: Young Doctors Come of Age in a Pandemic.Marc Tracy is a reporter for the New York Times who covers how art and culture intersect with politics in America. He wrote about the phenomenon of modern-day "diasporism" in the Times, and he is the co-editor of Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame.Marc and Emma have co-authored several articles about debates within the Jewish community -- and Jewish families -- in the wake of October 7th.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner joins host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, American Pastoral.Brodesser-Akner is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also the creator and executive producer of its Emmy-nominated limited series adaptation for FX. Long Island Compromise is her second novel.

Ariel Levy and Garth Greenwell join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's filthy masterpiece, Sabbath's Theater. Ariel Levy is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of the bestselling memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply. She is the co-writer, with John Turturro, of the stage adaptation of Sabbath's Theater, which made its off-Broadway debut in 2023. Garth Greenwell is the author of the acclaimed debut novel, What Belongs to You, and most recently, Small Rain. He wrote the essay "A Moral Education" for the Yale Review, a close reading of Sabbath's Theater. To learn more about the Philip Roth Personal Library, visit prpl.npl.org.

Novelists Adelle Waldman and Andrew Martin join host Sam Graham-Felsen to discuss Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer.