Letting Go

My mom has been gone now for more than three months, and her death has loomed over much that I read and write and think. It has certainly shaped one part of my reading of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. There are two nearly perfect moments in the novel, a novel that I think is mostly imperfect and flawed. They both involve the young Philip Roth’s relationship to his mother. Sons and mothers, or mothers and sons, is not usually Roth’s strength as a novelist; it mostly serves as comic relief, usually at the expense of the mother. Roth is more interested in fathers and sons, and sons and fathers. Though, interestingly, I’d say his truest, most tender, portrayal […]