Word: communists
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...examines his relationship to the bookas a whole and to Pin in particular. He writesabout his influences; he talks about his politicaland literary ideals. He is not altogether honesthere, however; although he gently rebukes hisyouthful self for his politics, he fails to notethat he was a member of the Communist Party for 10years after the novel's publication and wouldwrite about politics from an intelligentlyleftwing perspective for his whole life...
...Jewish man from Newark, N.J., achieves worldly success and happiness only to have his life ruined by his deranged daughter. That is the central story of Philip Roth's American Pastoral (1997), which earlier this year was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Now comes Roth's I Married a Communist (Houghton Mifflin; 323 pages; $26), which portrays a Jewish man from Newark, N.J., who achieves worldly success and happiness, only to have his life ruined by a deranged stepdaughter. Anyone who thinks these two plots are too similar to justify separate novels probably has not been paying attention to Roth...
American Pastoral portrayed the impact on a single family of public events during the turbulent 1960s. I Married a Communist sets the calendar back to the late '40s and early '50s, the era of Red baiting and McCarthyism in the U.S., when communists, actual or accused, were hounded into disgrace and unemployment or jail. One of them, according to Roth's novel, was Iron Rinn, ne Ira Ringold, a gangly (6-ft. 6-in.) son of Newark who had circuitously risen, after his military service during World War II, to become a prominent radio actor in Manhattan...
...constantly mesmerizing. Library shelves groan under the weight of books published about the witch hunts and blacklistings during the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, but it would be hard to find one among them that presents as nuanced, as humanly complex an account of those years as I Married a Communist. Nathan, for example, learns from Murray that Ira was a victim of the mania of his times but not an innocent one. He was a dedicated communist who lied to everyone, including Nathan's father, about his adherence to the dictates of Moscow. On the other hand, the forces that...
...Security Council (where Russia would almost certainly veto a strike). Rome's support is crucial since Italy provides most of the air bases to be used in the strike, but demurring on Kosovo may be part of Prime Minister Romano Prodi's domestic strategy to keep a Communist faction from bolting his fragile coalition. NATO officials are confident of getting Italy on board, but the continuation of eleventh-hour talks in Belgrade suggest that there may yet be a compromise. Says Calabresi, "Holbrooke's return suggests that there must be something to discuss...