The Plot Against America

by Philip Roth

Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as “History,” harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.

Never before—the great refrain of 1942.

“I went,” he told her, “because every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”

calamity, when it comes, comes in a rush.

nor had I understood till then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others.

It can’t happen here? My friends, it is happening here—and where is Lindbergh? Where is Lindbergh?”