Operation Shylock

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1994, Philip Roth's novel is about an American Jewish novelist named "Philip Roth," who is actually an imposter posing as the real Philip Roth. The imposter, Moishe Pipik, outrages Jews all over the world by advocating that Jews in Israel should go back where they came from. Roth threatens to sue, and Pipik diverts him with the ultimate weapon: a shiksa nurse from Chicago named Wanda Jane. The real Roth not only lusts after her, but finds himself becoming transformed into Pipik in much the way Pipik became him. Finally, the false Roth meets the real Roth in Israel, at the trial of an ex-Nazi--the culmination of a series of comic situations by means of which Roth--the real one--explores many of his favorite themes: doubleness, Jewish self-hatred, and the responsibility of the writer.