Book summary

Ira Ringold, a Jew from Newark (Philip Roth's home town), joins the communist party during World War II. Back home, he becomes a radio celebrity and marries an aging movie queen named Eve Frame. The marriage ends in disaster when Eve writes a book called I MARRIED A COMMUNIST, exposing Ira's secret life and making him vulnerable to the American anti-communist frenzy. Ultimately, he is destroyed. Like AMERICAN PASTORAL (1997), this novel is partly narrated by Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, and seems to be based on Roth's own troubled relationship with the actress Claire Bloom, to whom he was married for five years--and who had already written her own scathing book about the marriage. I MARRIED A COMMUNIST was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998.

Media reviews

"This powerful novel leaves me haunted by the isolation in which each character, not just Ira, stands in history. The book's final page tells of the stars, whose brilliance is matched only by their apartness. A classic image fit to close this new novel by one of the real ones."